LG15: LonelyJournal15
by ireactions
Summary: Alexis was a lonely girl. Then she met new neighbors; Jonas, Daniel, Sarah & Gina. Dealing with neighbors is hard, but Alexis never expected fistfights, explosions and death-cults. This story is set after LG15: The Resistance and concludes the LG15 saga.
1. Week One: Meeting The Neighbours

**LonelyJournal15 – the sequel and conclusion to the LG15 saga**

**by ireactions, suze900 and renegade15**

**week one**

_blog archive 41-06895 – identitag alexis capshaw 19 e04_

_intelligence transfer protocol PM6 via ydp-brother_

_tachyon-rjv confirms receipt_

_initiating infostream_

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**16 December 2008 07:00 am**

_**this is alexis' first blog entry**_

Hi, everyone! I'm Alexis and this is my first blog entry. I've always wanted to keep a diary, ever since I read _Dracula _and thought that it might be good to keep a record in case of being stalked by bloodthirsty monsters. But I could never make it past one or two days. I think it's because my hand would get tired from scribbling into a notebook. Also, I never quite had the patience to write out all my conversations in full. I guess characters in fiction have more time for that.

Not that I've ever had many conversations -- but that's why I'm so excited. New journal. New life! In three hours, I'll have driven right into Los Angeles, my new home! I've spent all my life in the town of Morton, population 20,000. And I've spent fifty per cent of my life -- pretty much the last ten years -- not really leaving the house much. It made my parents happy, but work sort of demands that I go to LA now. I have a job writing encryption software. It's a job that lets you work at home, which I like, but there are weekly programmer meetings so I have to move closer. I didn't want to leave home, but a thirty minute drive was clearly more workable than a three hour drive.

I've actually been going to school at UCLA, despite having never set foot into the LA city limits. During fourth grade, my parents thought home schooling would be better for me, and with occasionally popping into an Alternative, I finished high school when I was fifteen and enrolled into an online computer science program. My life has mostly been between my bedroom and my kitchen for the last ten years. If it weren't for my dad insisting I learn how to drive in case of an emergency, I don't think I'd have been outside at all for the last five years.

My parents have been really understanding about my social anxiety issues. They never pushed for me to meet friends, they made it really easy for me to keep at home. And when I decided to move out, they asked me to consider staying, but in the end, they actually bought me a car and an apartment. I'm going to pay them back in installments.

Los Angeles! Second largest city in the United States! Thirteen million people (when factoring in the whole of the metropolitan area)! Little Tokyo, Kodak Theatre, the Staples Center, the Coliseum! The home of Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy and... um... Bret Easton Ellis -- don't like him much, actually.

I think the main reason I started this blog is because I don't want to forget anything from this moment on. I want to write down that I'm feeling my heart thumping, my hands are shaking and my head is buzzing. Maybe I shouldn't have had that 17th cup of coffee inside of 40 minutes. I'm so excited!

I said good-bye to Mom and Dad last night -- I'll just slip out quietly now.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**16 December 2008 01:57 pm**

_**empty dollhouse **_

Oh God. Oh God. I so wasn't ready for this. Everything was going so well; the car started without a problem. It was only my fifth time on the freeway, but I got used to the speed after about ten minutes. I followed my maproute pulled into the city, drove through the residential areas and got to my apartment building. I found my parking space, I took the elevator up to the fifth floor. I opened the door, hauled in my suitcase and bag and then I realized I'd forgotten a few things. Things Alexis Capshaw completely forgot to think about and therefore does not have include:

* a worktable of any kind

* a bed

* a couch

* any chairs whatsoever

* a microwave

* food supplies

* Internet access

The only reason I'm even going to be able to post this entry is because I managed to find an unsecured router with my laptop. And the connection is so weak I find myself having to reconnect every 15 seconds just to use it. Which means I can't Google anything long enough to click on it, I can't get into my Gmail account, and the only Internet program that's any use right now is the blog software because it only takes five seconds to post.

I'm presently sitting on a makeshift sleeping bag of blankets and pillows in this bare and empty apartment that looks like an empty dollhouse. I have no idea where to go to find furniture or groceries or broadband and my Internet connection isn't any use. I could drive around, but I've got maybe ten minutes of gas left in my tank and I don't know where the closest gas station is. I can't load up Mapquest to find anything, and I used up the last of my cell phone minutes on long distance charges calling Mom to let her know I made it. My heart is still thumping, my hands are still shaking and my head is still spinny but it's not the fun time it was this morning. What am I doing here? I have no idea how to handle this. I've barely ever been out of my own house in the last ten years.

I'm sorry. I'm crying and can't keep typing because the salt content will penetrate the laptop keyboard and could damage the motherboard. Have to stop.

**

**16 December 2008 07:07 pm**

**housewarming **

_**A series of disturbing events just took place.**_

I'd spent about two hours crying. Eventually, my tear ducts ran empty and I was lying on my blankets, hugging a pillow and quivering fearfully. I was seriously contemplating finding a pay phone, placing a collect call to Mom and Dad and begging for them to come out and get me when there was a thump at the door.

I looked around my bare apartment, which didn't have so much as a tea cup in it. Visitors? Oh no. Oh no. Neighbours? Oh no oh no oh no. This was so embarrassing. Perhaps I could open the door to a crack, usher them away like a Jehovah's Witness and close it shut. But then I'd have to slip past them to go out and find a pay phone somewhere --

There was another frightening thump at my door. Twenty years of being raised by parents who set great store by manners had me diving for the door and pulling it open. Slumped at my front door was a young girl, covered in blood and bruises lining her arms. Her eyes were blank, her arms and legs looked limp and she'd apparently lost the ability to stand.

I leaned down to ask if she was alright, and she gave a low moan. She was too pale to be drunk, she smelled more like antiseptic than alcohol and she looked drained and worn. I screamed.

Yes, I know. I screamed at the sight of a helpless person collapsed on my doorstep as though I'd been threatened by a maniac with a broken bottle. I don't know what my reaction will be to things like mice or an audit. Once I'd run out of breath, I grabbed the girl, pulled her into my apartment, laid her down on my blankets and reached for my cell phone to call an ambulance, the national guard, the police, and my parents. Surely one of the four would know what to do.

"Don't." The voice was weak but insistent. The girl looked up at me, trembling yet resolute. "Please don't... call anyone... was supposed to meet the others here... after getting out... "

I put the phone down, remembering I had no minutes left on my account and forgetting that 911 calls were probably still possible. "Who are you?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound outraged at a fairly unthreatening person -- one who couldn't help being bloody and bruised and, from the look of it, starved.

"Gina."

"Oh. Um. Are you okay?"

Gina lay back, insensate.

I ran for the stairs, headed down to the lobby to the security desk. It was unmanned. But there was a first-aid kit and I grabbed the metal box and rushed back up to my apartment.

And that's how slender, brown-haired Gina met dorky red-headed Alexis. She was unconscious by the time I got back, and I wiped off as much of the blood as I could with a towel and started applying bandages and disinfectant. Most of the blood was coming from gashes on her arms and legs. She had marks on her left wrist; she'd been receiving some sort of IV. I wondered if she were an escapee from a mental hospital. Would mental hospitals attack you with knives if you tried to escape?

That was when there was another knock at the door.

I hoped it wasn't another stranger in a bloody mess. I opened the door. It was another stranger in a bloody mess. However, the curly-haired young man standing in my doorway was, at least, on his feet. His T-shirt was bloody at the stomach area, he had a black eye and his hair was matted with blood and grime. He looked like he'd been hung from a ceiling pipe, beaten up, then tossed in a sewer.

Behind the curly-haired one was a short-haired fellow, also looking to be in his early twenties. He had tidy hair and kind eyes and he looked completely uninjured, except for some fresh shaving cuts on his chin.

And there was a striking young blonde woman there too, looking contemptuously amused by everything.

"Errrrrr," I said helpfully.

"Gina!" the short-haired one in the back shouted. He charged into the apartment and went straight to Gina. "Gina? It's Daniel."

This seemed to wake Gina up and she muttered, "Oh good, hello," before passing out again.

The curly haired one introduced himself as "Jonas" and said the blonde girl was "Sarah." "Gina's our friend," he said. "We were separated; we were supposed to meet up here -- near here. Did you find her?"

I nodded. He said thank you and walked into the apartment, and I noticed he was walking painfully, wincing with every step. Sarah rushed forward to keep him up when he wobbled. And I heard Jonas say something that sounded like, "Did you have to hit me that hard?"

And then Sarah said something that sounded like, "Had to play the role to the hilt. You know I can't always swap bullets with blanks."

They all spent a few seconds murmuring assorted weirdness to each other and looking at Gina. Sarah said something about how one more week in "the order" and she would have been eligible for a toaster. Jonas and Daniel looked at her grimly for this, and then Daniel picked up Gina in his arms and said that they ought to get going.

"Who are you?" I demanded as Jonas, Sarah and Daniel walked towards the door with Daniel carrying Gina. "Are you, like, some kind of underground railroad for abused women? Anti-human trafficking?"

Daniel was already out the door with Gina, but Jonas and Sarah stopped, paused, and gave each other strangely uncertain looks.

Jonas finally said, "Well, um, we were just trying to help our friend. Thanks again."

Sarah smiled tightly at me and joined Jonas as they turned and walked out.

And across the hall.

And to the apartment door across the hall from mine.

And Jonas unlocked it, and all four of them went inside.

My new neighbors.

I want to go home now.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**17 December 2008 09:02 pm**

_**shopping trip **_

I woke up this morning on my floor with a purpose in mind and a plan in my head. I showered, got dressed, and determinedly crossed the hallway to the apartment of my new neighbors. Then I chickened out, turned around, and went back to my living room. Then I summoned the will to go to their front door again. On the fourth attempt, I finally knocked. Daniel opened it.

He said hi to me and called me, "Alex," saying it like it was acid passing through his teeth. I corrected him; I'm Alexis. And he said my name in a much friendlier tone. I don't really know how to explain his relieved expression there.

He became much warmer, thanked me for last night, and swept me in to visit Gina. Jonas and Sarah were sitting at a dining room table (a DINING ROOM TABLE! I want one!) on chairs (OH THE ENVY) eating cereal (out of BOWLS!). They nodded to me and resumed what looked like a pretty intense conversation. Daniel knocked on Gina's door and stuck his head in to ask if she was up for a visitor. He told me to go right in, and went back to the dining room to talk to his friends. As I walked into Gina's bedroom, I heard some odd snippets of the conversation between the three:

**SARAH: "**Ooooh, look, look, he's afraid to sit across from me. After all, I'm a homicidal maniac."

**DANIEL:** "Would you let it rest? How was I supposed to know you were faking to find Gina?"

**SARAH: "**You should be used to me faking by now, God knows I had to every time we -- "

**JONAS: "**Could we just stop it? Sarah, thank you for everything. My ribs say screw you but my heart is grateful, now could we just eat cereal and not fight?"

Interesting.

I went into Gina's bedroom to say hi. She looked healthier; less pale, less bruised. She was healing faster than I thought people actually healed. Gina smiled at me and she had a rather nice smile when it wasn't obscured with blood.

She thanked me for last night, and all I could think was that the thanks were a bit much. Any idiot can apply disinfectant. Is this how people make friends? By being grateful for fairly routine acts of consideration?

I tried to remember how people have conversations in books. I recalled that questions were involved. I started to ask Gina how she'd ended up outside my door, but my question was interrupted by shouting from the living room. Daniel was saying something about how he couldn't have known and Sarah was shouting about how Daniel didn't know but felt happy to say nasty things about her on YouTube.

Gina looked embarrassed and told me that Jonas, Sarah and Daniel helped her and took care of her. I finally asked from whom. Gina told me she had parents who were a bit overbearing to the point of threatening her life. And Jonas, Daniel and Sarah took her in and now she lives with them. I pointed out that Jonas seemed pretty bruised and beaten last night, and she said it was part of getting her away from her parents.

"Don't be scared of them," said Gina. I think she meant Jonas and Sarah and Daniel, as opposed to her parents. "They're just trying to find their way and do something useful. Just like you."

I didn't really know how to take that.

Gina needed to rest, so I let her go back to sleep and slipped out of her room. Daniel asked me if I wanted some coffee and Jonas poured me some. And they thanked me for visiting Gina. Sarah said Gina definitely needed to talk to more people. And then I admitted that I'd really knocked on their door to borrow their Internet connection.

Jonas passed me his laptop -- a MacBook Pro, which I wasn't too thrilled with, but okay. And he asked me what I was looking up. As I typed on this children's toy he called a computer, I explained that I was looking for:

* the closest gas station

* the closest grocery store

* a place to find a couch, a bed, some tables and chairs

* a shop to buy things like utensils, bowls, plate, cups, glasses, pots and pans

* a store to find items like a microwave and a toaster oven

* dishcloths

* and a place to find some prepaid phone cards

Sarah, Daniel and Jonas stared at me blankly. Then Daniel started to laugh uncontrollably, and I started to turn red, and Sarah started to laugh, and I gaped at them, wanting to throw their toy computer at them and kick them and scream at them for laughing at me. It's not my fault I don't know how to handle these things in advance, my parents never prepared me and why were they laughing and --

**DANIEL:** "Jonas, I think we've found your other half."

I stared at him blankly, looked to Jonas, and Jonas, looking sheepish, explained:

**JONAS: "**When Beast and I and Sarah first rented a house on our own, I totally forgot about those essentials too. Uh. Yeah. When you've lived in your parents house your whole life, you can forget that homes don't actually come with all the... housewares."

**ALEXIS: "**Who's 'Beast'?"

Apparently, that's Daniel. Pet name?

I was red in the face. Sarah said that she'd stay with Gina, and Daniel and Jonas could help drive me around for the day and find all the things on my shopping list. And they did. We took my car and gassed it up first.

We first got some prepaid cards at the gas station, then groceries, and finally arrived at one of those large superstores where you can get anything from hockey sticks to microwaves. That was where we chose the furniture, although Jonas said we should go to a proper electronics store for microwaves and such. Daniel called Jonas an elitist for that. I had to admit, this was going to eat through 75 per cent of that advance I got from my job, but Jonas warned me that if a superstore microwave broke down, it'd take five years of lining up to get a refund.

At the electronics shop, Jonas approached a salesman about a toaster oven and microwave, saying maybe we could get a deal. The salesman nodded to Jonas and told him to wait and wandered off. And Jonas and I stood where we were, by the children's DVD racks and waited, and waited and waited.

Finally, Daniel passed by, having emerged from the aisle of digital cameras, and demanded to know what we were waiting for. Daniel ended up chasing after the salesman and giving him a tongue lashing for forgetting about two customers. Daniel got me an employee's discount on the microwave and toaster oven.

In the car, Daniel rolled his eyes.

**DANIEL:** "I really don't get how you can be so shy."

**JONAS: "**I'm not used to this! I usually shop online. I just thought he was going to find us a catalogue or something. I was assuming positive intent."

**ALEXIS: "**Positive intent?"

**JONAS: "**Yeah, it's where when someone does something incomprehensible, you assume that they mean well by it and have a good reason for doing it and you act accordingly, encouraging them to act accordingly, and... "

**DANIEL:** "His intent was to take a three hour lunchbreak, man."

**JONAS: "**I didn't say I knew what I was doing."

They're very interesting. Most of the boys I knew were always talking about wrestling and action figures. Admittedly, the last time I was around boys talking was when I was ten, it's probably not useful experience a decade later. It was weird, though; Jonas and Daniel are able to insult each other without hurting each other's feelings. I don't know if I'd ever be able to handle that. Maybe that's what it means to have friends. You appreciate them acting like considerate people, and you enjoy insulting each other.

I have never enjoyed being insulted. The last time was when I was ten. It was my first day at school after moving to California from Canada. People started making fun of me for having a French-Canadian accent. They said I was pretending to be French and they would repeat everything I said in an exaggerated Parisian delivery. I couldn't understand the connection between being from Montreal and my classmates referring to Paris. I still can't.

It took a few hours for me to realize that I was being insulted. It was when they started calling me fake-French and asking me if I was eating fake frog legs.

I suppose I only made it worse by trying to imitate a South-Californian accent, by inserting, "OhmyGod!" and "Like" every four syllables, often in mid-word. I'd meant it as pathetic conformity, but they took it as an insult. My classmates took to bringing baguettes of French bread to school and attacking me with them. And that was the end of my school attendance, as far as my parents were concerned.

It was also the end of any chance I might have had to absorb Californian diction, since after that I rarely talked to anyone who wasn't a blood relative. My accent is for life now.

I watched Daniel imitate Jonas' deer-in-the-headlights expression when the salesman abandoned us, and I realized Jonas wasn't insulted as much as amused and embarrassed, but in a pleasant way. I hadn't quite realized how shy Jonas is. I always assumed handsome people didn't have to be shy, and Jonas is mathematically handsome. The symmetry of his features and the results of regular exercise have shaped him into a physical specimen who could easily use his physical appearance to influence others. Yet, he either is unaware or unwilling to do so. He is shy. I'm glad I'm not only one.

Although I am glad to be alone now, in my apartment with food and a wifi connection Jonas said I could borrow until I get my own. And I have a microwave and toaster oven. The chairs and couch and tables and bed will be delivered next week, but I guess I can handle sleeping on the floor. And now, with wifi, I can start earning that advance I got from work, when I've spent three-quarters of already.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**18 December 2008 08:41 pm**

_**sketches in the park **_

I'm really starting to enjoy sleeping on the floor. It's straightening out my spine. My dad would have a nervous breakdown if he saw me sleeping hardwood floorboards. He used to insist that I have a specially designed magnetic mattress, covered with hypoallergenic sheets which he'd have me change three times a week. He actually had printed on the sheets specific placement positions for my pillow, head, waist and legs. He said posture was important. I'm sure I'll get back to doing that when my furniture arrives next week.

This morning, I was still waiting on assignments from work. I'd half-finished most of my projects before moving away from home. I thought I'd spend most of the day sitting on the floor, but slouching over my laptop monitor really wasn't how I wanted to use my time. My computer table isn't arriving until next week, which means my wireless keyboard and monitor presently serve no ergonomic purpose. I tried typing on my stomach, but I couldn't get comfortable.

I sat on my floor for most of the morning, thinking maybe I should go outside. But I didn't want to go anywhere without letting Mom or Dad know I was heading out for a bit. About five hours later, I remembered they don't actually live with me anymore and I could go outside whenever I liked. And I did.

There was a nearby park. It looked alarmingly vast on Mapquest, so I copied the map into my PDA before venturing into it. I'd set a careful walking route that would lead me in a deliberately oval path and take me right back to where I'd gone in; this way, I wouldn't get lost and I wouldn't end up stranded in the wild, forced to live on grass and sunflower seeds to survive.

My mom was always warning me of danger years in advance.

About halfway into my route, I found Gina sitting on a bench by a fountain, holding a sketchpad and a pencil. I wasn't really sure how to handle this. Are you supposed to say hello to people you've met when you see them later, or are you supposed to walk on by? Maybe I could do both; I could walk by the bench and wave and continue along my route.

**GINA: "**Alexis? Hi! Wanna sit down?"

I sat. "What are you drawing?" I asked. Then I remembered that greetings might be in order first. "Hello. What are you drawing?"

The sheet on the pad showed a female face with straight, light hair and eye sockets so dark they might have been sunglasses without the frames.

**ALEXIS: "**Friend of yours?"

**GINA: "**No."

She flipped the page dismissively, putting another sketch on top. The second sketch was half-formed, still in progress. It was of the fountain in front of us. At least I thought it was; it captured the teardrop-shape of the fountain's center, but it was missing the rounded texture of the stones that formed the base. I pointed this out and then wondered if it was polite to criticize like that.

Gina smiled at me and started penciling it in. I watched her finish, and then pointed out that the same rounded stones were similar to the cobblestones around the fountain, as though the ground had slipped underneath the fountain and come up through the center of the fountain itself. Gina positively grinned at me and started filling that in as well. She captured the delicate spray of the water from the fountain perfectly and carefully drew in the splashes of water.

I pointed out a tiny leak in the side of the fountain, and Gina offered me her sketchpad.

**GINA: "**Go on."

**ALEXIS: "**Oh, no. I don't draw."

**GINA: "**If you don't, does that mean you can?"

**ALEXIS: "**I don't want to, thanks."

**GINA: "**It's okay, I've got an eraser."

**ALEXIS: "**I said NO!"

I couldn't believe I'd done that. Gina gazed at me, and I waited for anger or hurt or reciprocated hostility -- except that mine had been completely unwarranted and hers would be completely understandable. But there wasn't so much as a question in her eyes, just gentleness.

I told her I was sorry, and she nodded, and drew in the leak. I pointed out the little crevices in the fountain, and the slight rise where the pipework was. Gina thanked me.

She even joined me on my little round-trip in and out of the park when it was time to go home.

I asked her if she was alright, and she said she was recovered; she just needed a little space from "the boys." I wonder what it's like to need space, as opposed to having lots and lots and lots of space.

Maybe she knows what it means to need space because her parents hurt her and wouldn't let her go. I didn't feel comfortable asking.

And now, home alone, I wonder what it's like to be encouraged to draw, to do something for no reason other than to do it. I did draw, when I was younger. But my parents didn't think art lessons were a good use of time; they felt computer science was a solid future while art was just entertainment.

They wouldn't buy me sketchpads or drive me to supply shops or take me to galleries. They never said no, they just said they were busy until I eventually stopped asking. I never really thought about why.

Why'd they buy me this apartment? Why'd they give me the car?

There was a knock at the door a few seconds ago. When I opened it, no one was there, but Gina's sketch was taped to my door. She'd signed it, "GH & AC."

I erased my initials from it and put it in a drawer.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**20 December 2008 12:36 pm**

_**shut-ins shouldn't drink **_

I feel terrible.

Sarah took me and Gina out drinking last night. My memories about how I agreed to this are foggier than rainy season Glasgow right now. I think -- I think -- Gina cast a pleading, desperate look at me and I agreed to go along.

I've actually never consumed alcohol beyond one glass of champagne during a Christmas dinner four years ago when my uncle had Christmas at his house. Then he moved to Spain. So it was a little new for me at this extremely noisy bar with flashing lights and dancing people. The women were wearing really low-cut slips and I was in my pin-striped black trousers and black blazer and white dress-shirt.

I'd had a meeting earlier that Friday and had just gotten home when Sarah and Gina were heading out and invited me to join them.

The bartender called me, "Mom," which was odd. Maybe I look like his mother? Sarah gave him a very scary look that made it seem like she was going to tie him to a chair and beat him with a wrench. He ended up giving us some discounted drinks.

One and a half cups of beer later, I suddenly found that I'd lost the ability to walk in a straight line, or open my mouth without being afraid that the contents of my stomach would burst through and splatter on anyone in the vicinity. Socially inept as I am, it seemed obvious that this would not be endearing. I felt my stomach churning with every step as I lumbered towards the women's washroom, sat in a stall, and waited for the sensation to pass.

I'd been in the bar for exactly twenty-five minutes.

About three hours later, someone banged on my stall, calling my name. It was Sarah, who looked flushed, florid, and yet, in control. She gripped my shoulder and slowly brought me out of the washroom, out of the bar, and into a cab.

Gina was sitting in the front passenger seat, gazing at us both with alarm and nervousness.

"I just had the ginger ale," she said to me softly. "What did you have?"

I threw up. Thankfully, Sarah had a plastic bag ready and waiting.

I tried to stay as still as possible for the ride home, and I didn't talk much. Sarah, however, was ranting in an annoyed tone about how Daniel and Jonas had no appreciation for her efforts, and that her excellent work at pretending had instead frightened them and alienated her. She complained that she had no option but to pretend to switch sides, that she couldn't leave her dear friend Gina in the hands of those God-awful parents --

And she said, "parents" while making quote mark signs with her fingers and nodding at me strangely.

Gina quietly informed Sarah that she was very grateful, that "Reed, Beaumont and Maggie" were also very thankful, and that maybe her issues with Daniel -- specifically Daniel -- had nothing to do with the "fake-out."

I couldn't make much sense of this, being completely pissed.

I can't make much sense of it now, as I feel horribly hungover.

I hate drinking. I hate socializing, especially when it means being in the midst of strangers while being incapable of conducting yourself with any confidence, control or ability to contain your lunch. And Sarah frightens me.

I notice I've mostly been blogging about my neighbors. I actually hadn't been planning on blogging much. Maybe it's time I cut down on how much material I have to blog about.

There's a reason I found myself a job that allows me to stay home and avoid people.


	2. Week Two: Hell Is Other People

**LonelyJournal15 – the sequel and conclusion to the LG15 saga**

**by ireactions, suze900 and renegade15**

**week two**

_blog archive 41-06895 – identitag alexis capshaw 19 e04_

_intelligence transfer protocol PM6 via ydp-brother_

_tachyon-rjv confirms receipt_

_initiating infostream_

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**21 December 2008 09:35 pm**

_**visitors pay a call **_

By half-past noon yesterday, I was still feeling pretty awful. I decided to find a quiet, empty part of the wall in my living room and rest there with a pillow. Technically, every part of every wall in my apartment is quiet and empty, but this was under a window. I decided to stay there and ignore the occasional knocks on my door.

I left my computer running, downloading some software updates.

I ignored the first knock on my front door. And the second, more insistent knocking. The third attempt to get my attention was a determined double-rapping on the door. I ignored that too. Every time I'd dealt with anything outside my door, the results had involved blood and vomit. No way. I was in no condition to handle any more of either.

Unfortunately, the fourth assault on the entrance to my home was impossible to ignore. Someone kicked the door so hard that the doorknob dislodged from the door and landed on the floor. Then the door swung open and Jonas charged with a gun.

My body wanted to scream, but my nauseous state didn't allow more than a terrified gurgle. Jonas shouted my name, aiming the black pistol left and right. I was dimly aware that my crazy neighbor was apparently going to murder me with a Glock and that, as far as handgun aficionados were concerned, he had good taste.

Jonas saw me huddled against the wall and he lowered the gun. "Alexis?" he said, rather gently for a home invader. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"Yes," I answered weakly. "A deranged lunatic charged into my home wielding a gun."

As if to level off the tension, Daniel appeared behind Jonas, holding a clear pitcher of some nutritious looking orange liquid. He had a glass, too.

"Oh God," said Jonas, lowering the gun. "I'm so sorry, Alexis -- we were wondering if you were okay after Sarah's night out and you weren't answering your door but we could see you were connected to our router and -- "

"ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR MIND!?" I found myself snarling at him, rising to my feet and brandishing the pillow, although I realized it wouldn't be a match for the gun.

Jonas looked alarmed, and I saw his fingers tighten around the gun. I flinched. He noticed.

"Ah," he said. "Sorry. I'll go."

And he did, leaving me alone with the juice-carrying Daniel.

"I'm really sorry," said Daniel. "Uh, here, it's a hangover cure." He indicated his pitcher and poured me a glass. I nervously sipped at it. It tasted like orange, pear and pineapple.

"Why." Sip. "Did you." Sip. "Do. THAT?" Sip sip sip sip sip. He poured me another glass.

"Gina has really intense parents," said Daniel, his eyes darting left and right slightly.

I wondered if Sarah was going to pop in to provide the air-quote gestures.

"We were worried," Daniel continued, "that Gina's parents might have come after you for helping her."

Sip gulp choke gasp cough. "Is that -- likely?"

"No!" Daniel said, in a tone that was completely unconvincing and not remotely reassuring. "Of course not. We were just worried about you. We'll fix the doorknob, I promise."

I glared at him for a minute. Then I stormed to my recycling bin, and pulled out a scrap of paper. I scribbled my cell phone number on it.

"Just call next time," I said wearily.

He left me the juice and the glass. It's nice to have one drinking glass in the house.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**22 December 2008 03:12 pm**

_**the bareness of my walls **_

Ahh, accomplishment. What a crisp, crunchy apple it is to sink your teeth into. I am a talented professional who provides tidy, detailed work in a reliable and responsible fashion! Thank you, managers at work!

I never received this sort of approval at home, you see.

I was so pleased with myself that I really felt the need to visit the place where it all came together for me; the school where I truly honed and developed my talent. I've never actually been to the UCLA campus, ever, but it really looked nice in the photographs on the website. I decided to head out there and pay my respects.

Surprisingly, the place wasn't deserted, even though it's two days to Christmas. There were bunches of students on the grounds. I guess, like me, they didn't feel the need to go home and celebrate. Well. There actually haven't been any Christmas celebrations for me. Mom and Dad treated Christmas like a normal day. I suppose, given that I didn't go to school much, there wasn't anything to take a holiday from. And I guess Mom and Dad didn't want to strain my social anxiety by taking me on a trip anywhere.

I would have thought venturing out to a university campus might have been too disturbing to contemplate. However, I didn't expect many people to be there, and staying in my apartment is starting to be more terrifying than venturing out of it.

I was really impressed by the UCLA campus. Not the computer sciences wing; that was just a collection of rooms filled with computers and a projection screen set-up at the front. No, what stunned me were the arts-oriented areas.

Outside that collection of buildings were snow sculptures. Well, not real snow; this is LA after all. It was fake snow made out of foam and held together with some sort of adhesive. There were snowmen, naturally, but also cars, spaceships, castles and children's playgrounds -- all made out of fake snow. I was amazed. The galleries inside weren't locked. It was the digital art that impressed me most. One piece showed a table at a coffee shop, set for two with donuts and mugs. It was drawn entirely with tiny dots. Another image was a collage, each section made up of tinier pictures of faces, flowers, cosmetic products, trees, sunsets -- all of them shaded so that the overall image was a picture of the human eye.

I wonder why I never did something like that with my friends and then remembered that I'd never had any.

Looking around the colorful gallery made me feel bad that the walls of my apartment were so bare and undecorated. But it wasn't just my apartment. My room in my parents' house had no posters or pictures, not even family photos.

Being in this place of creation made me feel so blank.

And when I went outside, I saw groups of students, some of them playing with fake snow to form more works of art. I could see some through the windows indoors, reading books or spooning. How do you find people to sit down with you and read a book? Do you wander around the city, and randomly ask people to build fake snow sculptures with you?

I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the contacts list. It listed exactly one phone number -- for home. But that wasn't home anymore, was it?

I drove home. I came out of the elevator to find Daniel replacing my doorknob , screwdriver in hand. Jonas was there too, handing Daniel each part and fastener from the package containing new doorknob.

Gina briefly poked her head out of her apartment to mouth, "I'm so sorry," at me. Jonas handed me my new keys.

I asked Jonas and Daniel if maybe they, along with Gina and Sarah, would like to get some dinner on Christmas Eve -- I passed by a nice looking steakhouse on my way home just now.

And they all said yes.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**25 December 2008 04:07 pm**

_**dining disaster **_

Dinner with the neighbors took up two hours of my time. One hour and fifty minutes of that was lovely; it's the last ten minutes that seem to have ruined the previous hour-and-fifty. It's baffling; one would think that a 91 per cent score of being pleasant would cause the 9 per cent unpleasantness to be dismissed. But my mind is stuck on the nine.

It seemed alright at first. Jonas, Daniel and Sarah sat on one side of the table. Gina sat next to me, which was kind of nice. Daniel and Sarah were whispering a lot and it looked like they were finally settling whatever their problem had been. Jonas and I had a chat about simulated realities. Jonas told me about this theory about how humans are likely to eventually create highly advanced simulations of the universe and its civilizations. He explained the theory that once this tech exists, it's likely that an infinite number of these simulations will be produced. And if one accepts the probability that the technology will exist, and that the simulations will be run, then the probability is extremely high that all of us presently exist in one of those very simulations.

It was kind of creepy, but then I remembered an old astronomy book, which talked about how given the number of chance factors involved in producing a universe containing any planets that can support human life, the odds of this planet actually coming into being are incredibly small, yet here it is. One explanation is that there are an infinite number of universes, and we merely exist in one of the universes where life was successful among an infinite number of others that weren't.

Caught in hopeless rambling now, I mentioned the theory where the computational ability of human beings would eventually allow humans to create a simulation of their civilization, resulting in a virtual afterlife where anyone who ever existed would be re-created in this environment, and one in which the length of time would exceed the lifespan of the computer housing it. And we may be living out one such simulation right now.

Jonas thought about that, and commented that in that existence, no one would actually be dead, and anyone we've lost would still be around, so that didn't seem terribly likely right now. He seemed a bit sad at that.

That seemed to get Daniel's attention -- the talk of the afterlife -- and he was rather downcast at that too. Sarah cast me a sympathetic look, and I thought maybe I could raise everyone's spirits by ordering cheesecake for all.

I'd just ordered five portions when Gina turned pale -- as pale as she'd been when I first met her. Daniel asked her what was wrong and Gina pointed at the entrance. Framed in the double-set of doors was a man in sunglasses, wearing a black T-shirt and with an odd and quite frankly sloppy tattoo of the Greek letter Tau on his forearm.

For some reason, the atmosphere at my table turned chillier than a meat-locker. I couldn't understand what the problem was, and I especially didn't understand why Jonas told Daniel to take Sarah, Gina and me out the back while he dealt with "the Shadow."

Shadow? Sunglasses and a fake looking tattoo make you a 'Shadow,' now, do they?

Daniel protested he didn't want to get me involved, and I was bang alongside that view but Jonas gave him a look. Daniel and Sarah got up and pulled me out of my chair, pulling me towards the restaurant's back exit, while Jonas rose from the table and started walking towards the restaurant's front door.

Just as Daniel, Gina, Sarah and I were at the back exit, I pulled away from Daniel. Ignoring Gina calling my name, I rushed back into the heart of the dining area. I was treated to the sight of Jonas throwing himself on a table where a nice couple were seated. Jonas was ranting incoherently about tuna fish sandwiches in much the same way Sarah had ranted in the taxi last week. I think he was pretending to be drunk.

The man at the table got up and yanked Jonas off the table. Jonas deliberately spun his fall to collide with another table, disrupting another pair of diners, who got up to protest the fight. Four waiters rushed towards Jonas, who was crawling away on his hands and knees while the diners argued about what constituted the borders of a brawling ring.

The Shadow, trying to advance to our table, was barred by the diners and the waiters in a commotion, and Jonas and I managed to slip around the bar, climb over it and run past the exit to the Shadow.

Jonas and I were just outside the restaurant when a beefy arm clapped a hand on Jonas' shoulder. Jonas spun and threw a punch at the Shadow, but before it even landed, Jonas was struck firmly in the chest and sent falling to the ground.

The look on his face stunned me; he wasn't hurt, but he looked cornered and defeated, as though a 'Shadow', a man not much burlier than Jonas himself, was like Death incarnate having appeared outside an LA steakhouse.

The Shadow advanced towards Jonas. Jonas remained limp on the pavement like me with my hangover.

I realized I was standing next to a stand-up wooden signboard, advertising the steakhouse's prime rib special. I picked it up and brought it down on the top of the Shadow's head and he went down instantly.

Jonas was on his feet just as Daniel drove a van around the corner and in front of us, and Jonas pulled me into the van.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," I answered. It was an automatic response. And then: "Oh my God! We didn't get our cheesecake! We walked out on the bill! What was that all about?!"

Instead of answering me, Jonas, Daniel, Sarah and Gina started talking amongst themselves. Daniel kept driving, taking us towards our apartment building.

Jonas said something about how the Order knew his being trait positive was a scam -- positive for what, being prone to random acts of needless violence? Did he have some sort of bipolar disorder? That wouldn't be a scam. Except then he said that Gina wasn't trait positive anymore, either, which left me very confused.

Sarah suggested that maybe "it's revenge", saying something about how the last YouTube video she'd been told to put up had been to scare off any "rescuers." Then she pulled out Jonas' MacBook from his shoulder bag and loaded up a display. I couldn't quite get a good look at it, but the display showed certificates and driver's licenses; like the program was drawing them up. Sarah started talking about how they'd used "their own software" to draw up the fake IDs for the title deed and the car, and how, with "the FBI on our side," it didn't seem likely they could be tracked.

The program looked really familiar, and then I remembered. One of my first jobs was programming some low-grade encryption for an Alternate Reality Game company, which was suppose to provide simple puzzles and hacking exercises for roleplaying gamers. "Is this about a roleplaying game?" I demanded.

Jonas, Daniel, Gina and Sarah stared at me.

"Yes?" said Daniel.

"So," I started, "we started a fight in a restaurant, skipped out on a bill, and I knocked a man unconscious with a signboard and missed out on dessert -- because the four of you play an alternate reality game?"

There was a brief silence, and I erupted.

"How DERANGED are YOU people!?!" I screamed at them. "Stop the car! Stop it now!" Daniel obediently braked the van, and I pulled upon the door, bounded out and ran. I would walk home. I wasn't spending another second with these lunatics.

Half an hour into my walk, it occurred to me that it might be best to hail a taxi.

And during the taxi ride home, I decided that the next time I was lonely, I would ignore the feeling.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**27 December 2008 04:36 pm**

_**olive branch? **_

Someone knocked on my door. It was the politest door knock I'd received since moving in here. The furniture deliveryman had a rather demanding knock on Thursday. Today's door-knocker had a much more patient, unintrusive rap; a single knock followed by a silence before a subsequent double-knock. In door-knocking terms, it was a, "Hello" followed by a very well-mannered question mark.

I thought about ignoring it, but I realized that the polite door knock might be followed by a curly-haired dysfunctional kicking my door in again. Reluctantly, I opened it. There was no one there. However, lying on the floor was a small plate. On the plate rested a slice of cheesecake and a fork. The plate had been thoughtfully covered in plastic wrap. I picked it up.

Taped to the side of the plate were two tickets to an art gallery a half-hour from here. A post-it on the tickets read, "Bring a friend? Or you can bring me, if you want." It wasn't signed, but I knew who it was from.

Was Gina asking me out on a date?

Um.................................................................

What should I wear?


	3. Week Three: Debunking The Order

**LonelyJournal15 – the sequel and conclusion to the LG15 saga**

**by ireactions, suze900 and renegade15**

**week three**

_blog archive 41-06895 – identitag alexis capshaw 19 e04_

_intelligence transfer protocol PM6 via ydp-brother_

_tachyon-rjv confirms receipt_

_initiating infostream_

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**28 December 2008 03:01 pm**

_**i regret to inform you it wasn't **_

I was really excited. I'd decided on my nice black trousers and a casual sweater, but I couldn't decide which dress jacket I wanted to wear. Black, brown or green? I went with brown; casual yet as close to stylish as I will ever, ever be.

When I knocked on my neighbors' door, the door swung open before I could withdraw my knuckles from the surface. Gina was pulling in the door. She looked relieved and eager for an escape. Behind her, Daniel was resting his forehead against a wall. Gina said good-bye to him, and he didn't look up as he responded with a (polite) farewell. Gina was blushing, but it wasn't accompanied by pleasure or happiness as much as discomfort.

We had a nice, quiet day at the gallery. We went through numerous exhibits, and although we couldn't take photographs, Gina marked down the exhibit names and jotted down little comments, and was kind enough to include my thoughts on the 3D art and the shoelace constructions.

Gina caught me staring at a beautifully ornate chair, and passed me her sketchpad. This time, I drew in the shape of the backing and cushions, while Gina filled in the legs and floor. We ended up filling in the details our own way; I had my half focus on the texture of the wood and cushions, and Gina's half focused on the snake-like patterns of the legs.

I noticed that Gina had drawn yet another sketch of the black-clad woman with eyes lost in shadow.

Once our feet were starting to hurt, Gina and I enjoyed overpriced sandwiches and orange juice at the gallery cafeteria and continued to add to our sketches. We sat next to each other, passing the sketchbook back and forth, until Gina suggested we each do our half and turn the chair into a bench for two.

I laughed so hard orange juice almost came out of my nose. I caught Gina's eyes, flashing with humor and framed in soft skin. She sitting so close that I could feel the warmth from her shoulders. I realized I wanted something to happen. But then, a guarded look came over Gina, as though she could see something in me she didn't feel equipped to deal with.

"What happened with Daniel?" I found myself asking.

Gina took on a thoughtful expression, as though the question were a fascinating psychological puzzle. "He loved my sister," she answered. "As a friend. I think. But very much. And Jonas loved her, too. And not as a friend."

"Where is she now?"

"She's dead." She said it as though describing something unconnected to her that she'd read in a newspaper. There was no grimace of pain or suppressed sorrow.

"I'm sorry," I said anyway.

"I never knew her," Gina added. "Jonas and Daniel found me after she died."

I wanted to ask if Gina's sister had been abused and mistreated as Gina had been, if Jonas and Daniel maybe hadn't been able to help the sister the way they had for Gina. But if Jonas and Daniel had felt that way about her, they must have had some time together.

"Daniel likes me," Gina continued. "Or he thinks he does. I don't know if it's me he likes."

"Is that a problem?" I wanted to know.

"I sometimes think it's really my sister that he likes. And that he sees something of her when he looks in my direction." Gina sipped at her juice. "I know he cares, I just sometimes think what he really wants is the ghost of a girl who's gone."

How did Gina's sister die? How had Jonas and Daniel met her? How had they found Gina? Why did Gina's cell phone have to ring right when I wanted to ask these questions?

It was Daniel, saying that they needed Gina for something and were going to drive to the gallery to pick her up, and in fact were on their way and would arrive in five minutes. Gina apologized to me and asked me if I wanted a ride back home with Jonas, Daniel and Sarah.

I wondered what ghastly live game scenario they were getting into tonight, and declined. I didn't mind too much when Gina left.

I decided to try to enjoy my time alone. I found this quiet Internet café to type up my entry in.

I was just on the last paragraph when I spied someone at the computer diagonal to me. I know him, and I don't know many people. It's that fellow from the steakhouse; the one I knocked unconscious with a signboard.

Why was Jonas so frightened of him?

Mister 'Shadow' is settling up for his Internet time. I'm going to post this and follow him.

Dear God, I need a life.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**02 January 2009 04:43 pm**

_**sketching churches **_

Happy New Year! Sorry about not posting for so long! Ever since the gallery visit with Gina, I've been swamped with work. We had extra meetings at work to make up for the holiday time and I just really haven't been able to set aside my work to blog.

My parents had a very interesting reaction when I told them I'd be staying in LA for Christmas and New Year's. They weren't surprised that I hadn't demanded to be brought home after three minutes in a bare, lonely apartment. I'm surprised too.

Gina's been visiting almost every day. It's usually just for about forty-five minutes to an hour; we have tea and we talk. Gina brought me some photographs of this church that's near downtown LA that she thought we might sketch together. She had all these photo references of the church, from when it was first constructed in 1791, when it fell into disrepair by 1937, and when it was rebuilt in 1975 and significantly expanded in 1996. We've split the church into thirds; Gina's drawing the church after its initial construction, I'm drawing the dilapidated version in 1937, and we're both working on the vastly expanded wings in 1996. Each third will fit together to form a full image once we're done.

The two of us have been to the church twice now, to take more photographic references. Gina never wants to get too close to the building; she says she needs to fully appreciate its width and size. We're always about a seventy feet away, standing in the midst of trees, slightly off a path. We're always with our backs to a small pond. I sometimes wonder if we might be better off sketching the natural scene behind us instead of the church in front of us, but I guess then it wouldn't be a partner project.

I think Gina prefers being outside. During one of her visits, Gina told me that she has bad dreams. She dreams that her parents have caught up with her and taken her away from Jonas, Daniel and Sarah again. And I don't think it's just a nightmare for her. It's happened before, I think; Jonas, Daniel and Sarah freed her, she was captured again, and she escaped again, ending up at my front door.

Gina says that sometimes she feels like she's trapped in a perpetual cycle of captivity and escape, and she's afraid of the cycle coming round again. She says she doesn't know how to break free from it.

Well, maybe I can take her mind off things. I was passing by a stage theater after the gallery visit, and I booked tickets for all five of us to go see a fun post-Christmas show. It's going to be next Monday. I'm sure it'll be a nice evening. I doubt even Jonas can start a fight in a stage theater where people will be quiet and watching the show.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**06 January 2009 11:04 pm**

**_my mistake and their mistake_**

Apparently, Jonas can start a fight in a stage theater. I'm starting to think I can't take these people anywhere.

Jonas parked the van in a parking lot that was about a forty minute walk from the stage theater. I didn't see the receipt for the parking bill, but Jonas may have had to sell one of his summer cottages to pay it.

We stopped for hot dogs along the way and arrived at the theater terrifically full. I'd gotten us mid-range seats in the lower orchestra and we settled in civilly to watch a last-showing of a stage version of It's A Wonderful Life.

I don't really know how to describe the looks on my friends' faces when the actor playing George Bailey came onstage. The actor, you see, was the Shadow from their little Alternate Reality Game on Christmas. I'd followed him from the Internet café to the stage theater and found his photo in one of the show programs.

Jonas' body coiled as though preparing to throw something. Daniel was struggling to stay in his seat. Sarah had a look of resigned annoyance on her face, much like my father when dealing with a perpetually broken refrigerator door. Gina looked like she was having a stroke.

They remained in that state for the entire 90-minute show, even when the Baileys and friends were singing Auld Lang Syne.

As the applause began, Jonas immediately got up and started climbing over people, out of the aisle and heading for the exit. We all followed. I don't know why I stayed with them. I'd thought that seeing their fellow ARG-player would snap them out of their overactive fantasy lives and make them realize he had a life outside doing whatever it is Shadows do. But they were tense and grim and we went out the front entrance of the theater and to the side entrance -- to the stage door, where we could enter backstage. There was a security booth and a security guard inside it.

Jonas handed Sarah a show program, and Sarah approached the security guard. "Hiiiii," she drawled sweetly and, I must say, somewhat seedily. "I'm here to see Crispin Brewster? Just tell him that Lucy wants to pay him a visit."

The guard picked up a phone, dialed an extension, and relayed the message, saying it was being delivered by a blonde.

A theater usher appeared, and led Jonas, Daniel and Sarah into the backstage hallways. Jonas asked me to stay behind with Gina.

Gina and I found ourselves talking about George Bailey's suicide attempt, for some reason.

Jonas, Daniel and Sarah then emerged from backstage. In front of them, walking along awkwardly, was Crispin Brewster, the actor who'd played the Shadow and George Bailey. He had a forced, pained smile. Jonas, with his right hand firmly in his jacket pocket, told us all that we were going to walk to the car, very quietly.

It was a very strained forty minute walk. I didn't dare say anything. The tension between the four ARG obsessives and the actor was enough to paralyze the voice of the red-headed geek.

When we got to the van, Daniel unlocked and opened the back door. Jonas ordered Brewster in, and then I realized that Jonas was once again handling his pistol and had been threatening Brewster with it the entire time.

"What is going on here?" I demanded.

"What is this all about?" Brewster shrieked, a high, reedy voice that was nothing like his tone when playing George Bailey, and not what I'd expected from such a well-built individual. He didn't get into the van, but leaned against the side of the van door, trying to back away as far as possible from the gun barrel. "What do you people have against me?"

"Don't even try it, you PCP-enhanced psycho," Sarah snapped. "Why're they still after us?"

"Lady," Brewster replied, "I don't even know what you're -- wait, what'd you call me?"

"She called you a PCP-enhanced psycho," Daniel supplied. Jonas backed this up by thrusting his gun even closer into Brewster's face.

Brewster seemed to forget the gun in his state of astonishment. He reacted as though Daniel had just accused him of being a sentient waffle from Pluto.

"Are you serious?" Brewster exclaimed.

"What is wrong with the four of you?" I demanded. "He's an actor! He specializes in musical theater, body building, and the occasional live-event for Alternate Reality Games!"

"Yeah, what she said!" sputtered Brewster. "You don't really think any of that Shadow-crap is real, do you? It's a casting sheet! If I were really anything like the character, you think Red over there could have knocked me out with a signboard?"

Jonas, Sarah, Gina and Daniel seemed baffled. Jonas, thank God, lowered the gun.

* * *

We ended up at a coffee shop nearby. Jonas had put the gun away. Sarah presented Mr. Brewster with her laptop, and Brewster logged into his Gmail account through the browser. He clicked back into old E-mails around 2007, and showed Jonas an E-mail he'd received from his agent.

It was a casting call, asking for well-built actors at least six feet tall to play the characters of 'Shadows.' These were drug-enhanced hitmen who worked for a cult-like organization called the Order, who served as the bodyguards for 'Elders' and also as assassins and hired thugs. The role required attending various ceremonies, and visiting the homes of various Alternate Reality Game players in order to give them someone to flee in fright from.

The company that had sent out the casting call was called Eternal Quest: Alternate Lives -- an Alternate Reality Game that, according to Brewster, specialized in murder mystery dinners, live game scenarios -- essentially fantasy roleplay in real-life situations.

Jonas, Sarah, Daniel and Gina looked like they'd just been presented with a mayonnaise with coffee-grounds sandwich; stunned and slightly ill. I, however, was wondering just how obsessively the four of them had replaced reality with their little past-time.

"It's just a game," said Brewster, sounding like my father explaining to me that there were no monsters under the bed and I couldn't read any more horror novels until I turned twelve. "I'm just an actor. May I go home now?"

Jonas nodded. Brewster got up and headed for the door, and I enviously watched him leave. My companions, however, were not watching him leave. They were instead Googling the address of the Eternal Quest office.

Unfortunately, MapQuest informed them that the address listed was now the address of a brand-new parking lot.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked as politely as I possibly could.

I really, really wish I didn't have to type the answers I received because they were quite appallingly idiotic.

Daniel told me that, for the last two years, the four of them had been on the run from a secret society known as the Order of Denderah. This secret society presents a public face to the world as the Hymn of One religion, a group cultists with highly placed members throughout the whole of Western civilization and various scientific and corporate holdings providing them with resources and influence throughout America and Great Britain.

He said, however, that the Hymn of One was ultimately a sham; the true purpose of the Hymn of One -- The Order's purpose -- was to secure and indoctrinate girls with a specific and rare blood type. This blood, transfused and siphoned into others, served as a source of renewed eternal life. The process, however, was fatal for these girls with "trait positive" blood. Within the Hymn of One religion, this deadly blood transfusion was described as "the Ceremony," although its details were left vague.

The isolated nature of the average Hymn of One family meant that the trait positive girls were without any contact outside of their religion and without anyone to defend or protect them, or anyone to miss them once they'd been drained of their blood. Gina's sister, Bree, was one such girl and Gina is another. Jonas, Sarah and Daniel are now in hiding from the Order of Denderah (henceforth referred to as the Order) and trying to keep Gina safe from the Order's various henchmen, which included "Watchers" and "Shadows."

"A cult that's infiltrated every level of American society?" I mused. "And the UK?"

"We've also," added Sarah, "heard some stuff about Poland and Australia."

"This is," I said, "the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my entire life."

I paid for my hot chocolate and left.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**07 January 2009 06:17 pm**

**_scheduling a reality check_**

I buried myself in starting and completing programming projects as long as I could, but eventually, I couldn't distract myself any longer. I did a search on the Hymn of One. It looks like your garden-variety flavor of the month religion, oriented more along philosophical concepts than worship of any deities. If I had to be religious, I'd probably go with the tenets of this one.

Daniel described the Hymn of One as a restrictive, isolationist religion, but I'm not seeing it in the literature. These look more like life-philosophies about obeying the will of your body's desire to protect and care for itself through enlightened altruism towards your environment and others in it. I suppose they could be interpreted in a very fascist, controlling manner -- for the purposes of creating a villainous cult for an Alternate Reality Game.

I think my neighbors are bored, lonely rich kids. Oh God, I swore I wouldn't get involved in this. I'm going to go through my binder of financial statements.

Oh boy. I have here a receipt from 2008; it's a notice of transferred funds from Eternal Quest: Alternate Lives – EQAL for short. I designed a few programming puzzles for their ARG games. It was one of my first jobs. And this pay slip has on it a different address from the one in Brewster's casting call.

This is not the address of a parking lot. It's for two floors of offices in LA.

I don't want to get involved I don't want to get involved -- but then again, Jonas and Daniel did help me find furniture. I guess, if a reality check can help my neighbors find their way to sanity, I should do what I can.

I'll ask them to visit the offices with me. And they will see that Eternal Quest: Alternate Lives is simply an ARG company and nothing more.

Maybe then I can have sane, stable people living across the hall.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**09 January 2009 04:07 am**

**_behind the curtain_**

My original intentions were to book an appointment with Eternal Quest: Alternate Lives, maybe arrange some sort of tour for my neighbors and shock them back to reality. However, Gina wandered in while I was leaving a message at EQAL's offices. Gina asked me what I was doing. Before I knew it, Jonas, Sarah and Daniel were planning a break-in.

My contribution was to load up a security card pass to allow us to unlock the doors. Somehow, I went from trying to discourage my neighbors' escapism to enabling it. I protested, but I gave in. I think, in my brain, my logic was that at least with security cards to get through the door, my neighbors wouldn't be brought up on breaking and entering since the doors were semi-legitimately unlocked for them.

We took the elevator up to the fourth floor, the first level of the office building for EQAL's premises.

It consisted of three cubicles containing computers and a few chairs by the window.

"Oh, wow," I muttered. "I was expecting a bread factory."

Sarah stayed on the first floor to log onto a computer. Jonas, Gina, Daniel and I went up one floor.

It was the second floor that made more of an impression.

Behind the two doors in front of the elevator were endless racks and lines of clothes hangers and shelves. It was essentially a walk-in clothing closet, spanning the space of the entire floor. On the racks where generic black business suits in every size. But there were also police uniforms, with patches and insignia removed, presumably for easy alteration.

Creepier than the clothes, though, were the props. We found snap-on plaques reading, "Lifesblood Labs" and "Verdus Pharmaceuticals". There was also a supply of mobile medical equipment; easily transportable stretchers, IV units and blood transfusion kits.

There was an entire row of IDs; police badges, FBI badges, and various transparent templates for driver's licenses, passports, and fake government office cards.

There were also rub-on tattoos; the tattoos looked like eyes, and the Greek Tau.

There were also racks of pamphlets. They contained quick-study 'cheatsheets'. Some of them were character profiles, like the casting call Crispin Brewster had shown us; describing Watchers, Shadows, Elders and the Hymn of One religion. They looked like references for actors to use to play their characters.

Daniel approached an entire wall covered by a shelf of guns. He picked one up and I flinched. But then --

**DANIEL: **"It's a fake. These are all prop guns. They've got an outer metallic shell, but they're hollow."

**ALEXIS:** "Yes... fake. Not real."

**DANIEL: **"The fake IDs and badges -- they wouldn't fool a bartender, never mind real cops or government offices. These suits are off-the-rack cheap, these pamphlets look like roleplaying character guides -- "

**ALEXIS: **"Shouldn't they?"

**DANIEL: **"These plaques -- they snap over existing building plaques; they're the kind used to fake a location. On shoots, we'd borrow some other business' lobby or something and hide their plaques with our fakes."

**ALEXIS: **"Yes -- for a game, right? Wait, wait -- Verdus and Lifesblood. I've heard of those. Those are real drug companies! They had ads in the newspapers."

**JONAS: **"Lifesblood Labs stole research from Verdus, from the Order. They're not part of the Order -- are they? Daniel, what's that?"

**DANIEL: **"This medical equipment, it's -- "

**GINA: **"Fake too, Daniel. I practically lived around the real deal. These IVs are filled with colored water and sealed off. The transfusion kits don't even have needles."

**JONAS:** "Why would the Order have all this fake stuff?"

**DANIEL:** "You know what this looks like? This looks like a storage closet for a film shoot; fake guns, costumes, character guides, fake IDs -- all this is just enough to fool a camera. Just enough to look real onscreen. Movie props are only designed to look real at a distance. They're not built to look real when you're looking at them up close and personal."

**ALEXIS: **"Lifesblood and Verdus are part of a game -- ?"

But that didn't make sense. Surely no company would consent to being part of a fictional story that cast them as villains or cultists, and that was what everything in this floor of storage space was for; costuming and outfitting villains for an Alternate Reality Game.

Gina was looking at the cheap black suits and sunglasses, and memories of distant fear crossed her face. It wasn't the sort of fear one might have when having an intense D&D session; it was real. But nothing in this place was real and yet --

"I don't understand," I said.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**09 January 2009 10:13 am**

**_this is a story about a lonely girl_**

We sat in an all-night diner. Sarah fiddled with a portable hard drive she'd taken into the EQ offices and copied a terabyte of data to. Jonas, Daniel and Gina, however, looked deeply troubled and contemplative. I asked them to tell me everything.

**DANIEL**

_Bree Avery was my best friend. I met her when I was sixteen. She was sitting in the school soccer field talking to a purple monkey finger puppet. She was telling PMonkey about how some people at lunch had been making stars out of toothpicks and throwing them at her. I was fiddling with my new camcorder that day and I asked if she'd let me film her conversation with the puppet. She said no, but she kept talking to me. I never convinced her to let me film the conversation, but she did end up asking me to help her choose a webcam. We bonded over making little home videos, and eventually, she started video blogging and I'd edit her videos for her. We became best friends._

_I wasn't really a huge fan of her parents, though. They seemed way too ready to pull her out of regular school just because of a few bad days. They didn't even like me visiting Bree, but I guess she talked them into it. It was like the Averys wanted their daughter to be totally without friends and only coming out of her room to eat and go to the bathroom. They seemed to get really uptight about Bree going anywhere where she might meet people who weren't in their Hymn of One religion._

_The more time I spent with Bree, the more I noticed how controlling her parents were. The summer camps they sent Bree to were all about avoiding influences outside the Hymn of One. And Bree told me about how she was being prepped for something called the Ceremony. Her dad was giving her regular injections of something, she was having to learn ancient languages, and she didn't actually know what the Ceremony was. And when I tried to find out, people from Bree's church started following me around and photographing me. Bree got scared. So did her parents. Her parents told the Deacons in the Hymn of One that Bree wanted out, and the next thing Bree and I knew, her parents had vanished, leaving only a note telling her to run away from home and hide._

**JONAS**

_I met Bree online. I know that sounds kind of creepy, but I saw her video blogs, and saw how desperate she and Daniel were living on the streets and hiding out, and I said they could stay with me. And they did. They stayed with me in my house and it was the first time in a long while that I had people -- friends -- in my life. Me, Danielbeast and Bree -- I think it was the happiest time of my life._

_The happiest. Even when the Order found us and we had to leave my house and find other places to hide, and even when we had to spend several weeks living in this craphole of a bunker. We were always on the run. But I had Bree and Daniel, they had me, and we stood together against the Order. When we saw them, we ran, while trying to figure out why she was so important._

_Eventually, we found notes from Bree's dad. It turned out that Bree had a very special blood-type. The Order believed that Bree's trait positive blood -- and the blood of girls just like her -- could be siphoned into another person and give that person an extended life. The Order believed that Bree's blood was the fountain of eternal life._

_Bree wasn't the only girl the Order wanted, but she was one of the few who'd learned the truth and escaped. Bree's dad had been giving her injections to make her blood normal, and then the Order killed him for it. We kept running. The Order kept chasing us and chasing us. And Bree gave in. She saw her friends living as fugitives, always afraid, always on the run. She lost hope. She gave up. She ran away from us. She let the Order take her and they killed her._

**GINA**

_Bree's life wasn't the only one the Order destroyed. Bree and I were infants when the Order adopted us. Bree was put with a controlled family, and I was put in a lab. Bree and I had the same blood and the Order wanted to see if there was any way to create trait positive girls artificially instead of trying to track them after they'd been born. I spent nineteen years of my life being experimented on. Regularly injected, hypnotized, locked up, sedated, subjected to surgical procedures and drug therapy. The experiments would make me sick all the time and left me in a perpetual haze for two decades. Then Daniel rescued me._

_It was the first time I'd ever been free. Jonas and Daniel told me about my sister and how they'd lost her to the Order. And they protected me. A few months ago, we were attacked in our cabin. Everyone had to run, and they thought that I'd been killed. But Sarah found out the Order had me, and pretended to betray Jonas and Daniel so she could join the Order's ranks and save me._

**SARAH**

_And after that, I went to this little place just at the razor edge of Beverly Hills, and that's where the best apple martini in LA can be found. That's my most prominent memory of all this, really. Apple martini._

**DANIEL**

_It's not a game, Alexis._

**GINA**

_We've been telling you the truth._

Part of me wanted to say that this was ridiculous. This was the stuff of low-budget horror movies. None of this could be happening. But I could see Gina's grief and pain, I remembered Sarah's air-quotes when referring to Gina's parents, I could see the loss and regret when Jonas spoke of Bree and the blissful, child-like happiness when Daniel remembered her too.

I believed them.

**DANIEL:** "But right now, we don't know what we believe."

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**09 January 2009 01:09 pm**

**_debunking the order_**

Jonas, Daniel, Sarah, Gina and I drove back to the apartment building. In their apartment, Sarah put up a whiteboard and they all took turns writing down everything they'd ever seen of the Order, every example they could think of the Order's reach, power and influence.

Before we began, however, Sarah mentioned what she'd discovered: judging from the information she'd copied from EQ's computers, the entire Hymn of One/Order operation ran on approximately 1.2 million dollars a year.

**JONAS:** "That's less than what I've spent on psychotherapy."

**SARAH:** "And yet you remain bipolar... "

Despite Jonas' protests that he'd been joking, Sarah included it on her fact-list and continued writing.

**SHADOWS**

Jonas and Daniel remembered that every time they'd been chased by a Shadow, their enemy's agent had done little more than pursue and pose menacingly. They'd never physically experienced the threat or danger of a Shadow's physical power -- and now that they'd seen one up close and had coffee with one, it was clear that the Shadows were simply hired actors.

**VERDUS PHARMACEUTICALS**

This was the company that had housed trait positive blood samples and performed research to artificially produce trait positive girls. Verdus had been an example of how the Order cloaked its murderous work in legitimate scientific enterprise. But our visit to the storage space had suggested that Verdus was little more than a logo and some props.

Jonas admitted that, during the break-in to Verdus' labs, he had seen only one lab and the office where he'd broken into the safe to steal blood samples. He'd never seen even an entire floor; only the portion of it that he'd passed through in a mad dash to rob the place and run out. For all he knew, it might have been little more than one furnished floor.

**BREE'S CEREMONY**

The medical facility where Bree Avery had been killed had been bare and almost wholly unfurnished, except for mobile stretchers and the transfusion unit. It looked almost like an abandoned hospital that the Order's people had temporarily set up shop in as opposed to a wholly funded and resourced medical center. Another place where trait positive girls had been bled dry had been an actual abandoned hospital -- which wasn't exactly indicative of great resources behind the Order.

**THE LULLABY PROJECT**

This was a camp in Mexico where my neighbors had found a breeding operation attempting to artificially inseminate women with trait positive offspring. It was a small camp out in Mexico; it would have cost nothing to stage for others to see. And clearly, it hadn't been successful since trait positive girls were still being controlled and kept under guard.

**LIFESBLOOD LABS**

Once again, Jonas only saw portions of the building during a mad dash to rescue a captured friend. For all he knew, Lifesblood Labs was only a few rented portions of the facility. Furthermore, Lifesblood Labs had billed itself as a split from the Verdus/Hymn of One operation -- yet the EQ storage space had contained all the props needed to make Lifesblood seem like an actual organization for genetic research. The only reason for that would be if Lifesblood had been another hoax.

**GENETIC EXPERIMENTATION**

Certainly, Gina, and another of Jonas' friends, Maggie, had been subjected to experiments. However, Gina's experiences had mostly been restricted to a single medical exam room; it might not have been the vast medical complex her friends had imagined the Order to possess. Nor could the genetic experiments have been on the widespread, massive scale as suggested by Verdus and Lifesblood; a mere 1.2 million dollars couldn't allow for anything like the research suggested in the Lifesblood press releases.

Our conclusion was that this seemingly omnipresent, all-powerful Order of Denderah had a vastly exaggerated reputation.

**JONAS: **"So, everything we've seen for the last two years; the labs, the offices -- it was all a set-up? Just enough to fool us?"

**DANIEL: **"Just enough to fool a webcam and anyone passing by."

**SARAH: **"All this time, we all thought the Order was everywhere and everything we saw backed that up."

**DANIEL: **"At these Hymn of One gatherings I sometimes went to with Bree, we'd see off-duty cops, Bree's dad would point out local politicians -- "

**JONAS: **"Actual politicians, or did the Hymn of One members just say there were?"

**SARAH: **"They wanted us to think they had genetics labs -- "

**DANIEL: **" -- an army of assassins and hired thugs, corporate holdings, U.S. Senators -- "

**SARAH: **"And how many times did we find discs or books or documents that were supposed to help us fight the Order, only for them to just lead us to the next puzzle-piece and the next one after that?"

**JONAS: **"They've been sending us on clue-hunts, having us run in pointless circles for two years -- "

**DANIEL: **"Running in the wrong direction -- "

**SARAH: **"Why would they do that? Why was it so important to look like they were worldwide, global, running the government, running the world?"

**GINA: **"Fear."

* * *

**GINA: **"Bree made video blogs. Eventually, all of you did. So the Order gave you something to film. They'd plant clues to send you around the entire country and all the way to England. And everywhere you went, you'd find the Order waiting and watching. All the labs, all the medical complexes, every office building and skyscraper -- and every Shadow, every Watcher -- we filmed all of it. And we put it online. All our videos show us hiding from the Order, afraid that it can get to anyone, that no one can escape its reach."

**DANIEL:** "Our videos show us all getting picked off one by one, failing every time we fight them."

**SARAH: **"The last video I uploaded showed Jonas hanging from a ceiling."

**GINA: **"The Order puts its trait positive girls with controlled families. Bree's dad couldn't have been the only parent who tried to save his daughter. The Order would try to keep control by making it seem like there's nowhere to run -- "

**JONAS:** "And the people who even try, people like us -- "

**DANIEL:** "We were chased everywhere we went. We saw our friends killed. We were captured and tortured, and even when we escaped, we were just counting time 'til we got caught again. Our videos show the Order beating us until all of us broke or gave up."

**JONAS: **"And all of those families with trait positive blood see us as an example of why there's no hope at all."

**SARAH: **"We've been running around like rats in the Order's maze."

**GINA: **"They used us, and everyone who has ever stood with us to spread their fear and their lies."

**ALEXIS:** "Does anybody want a sandwich?"


	4. Week Four: The Living Death of Family

**LonelyJournal15 – the sequel and conclusion to the LG15 saga**

**by ireactions, suze900 and renegade15**

**week four**

_blog archive 41-06895 – identitag alexis capshaw 19 e04_

_intelligence transfer protocol PM6 via ydp-brother_

_tachyon-rjv confirms receipt_

_initiating infostream_

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**10 January 2009 07:41 pm**

_**invited on a road trip **_

**Jonas **- egg salad on untoasted whole wheat

**Daniel **- corned beef on a kaiser

**Sarah **- bacon, lettuce and tomatoes between one slice of marble rye, one slice of whole wheat

**Gina **- bottle of water and a slice of buttered rye toast

**Alexis** - corned beef, sauerkraut and swiss cheese between three slices of rye

Jonas went into his bedroom to make a phone call after eating. He came back out, looking grim and annoyed.

"I take it the FBI isn't going to be helping us this year," said Sarah.

"According to Agent Whitcomb," said Jonas, "we just made his job fourteen times harder. If everything with the Order looks like an alternate reality game, that just adds to the Order's deniability."

"You have friends in the FBI?" I asked, very impressed.

Everyone else was disappointed, and Sarah focused her energies on the whiteboard. She wrote up the names of eight cities; five in the United States and three in the United Kingdom. "Eternal Quest has been making money transfers to accounts in these places," Sarah explained. "The paperwork lists the transfers as being for game budgets."

"I take it that it's not for a game?" I said.

"It wouldn't be," said Daniel. "It has to be for surveillance on trait positive girls. Populating the community with agents from the Hymn of One."

"Would all the agents be actors?" I pondered.

Sarah pondered that. "A few thugs with handguns and tattoos. A few pawns who think it's all just a game."

"You'd think," I said, "that people who can live for a very long time would have accumulated a lot of manpower and resources."

"But they're hiding," countered Sarah. "Hiding behind Alternate Reality Game companies and wishy-washy religions. We thought they ruled the world, but what if they're just trying to keep themselves low-profile by hiding in plain sight? They're no different from every cult on the sidewalk handing out fliers."

Jonas had been looking through the list of towns and cities Sarah had written down.

"What's the closest one?" he asked. Sarah informed him that it was Chesterton, California, population of 20,000, about a four hour drive from Los Angeles.

Jonas reached under the coffee table and pulled out his mapbook. "I'll start planning a route," he said, "and booking motel rooms. Pack your bags, everyone."

Sarah, Gina and Daniel left for their bedrooms, leaving me alone with Jonas.

"I really hope," I told him, "that you have a better plan than your usual approach of spying, running away, getting captured, escaping and getting captured again."

I'd been watching more of the _LonelyGirl15 _videos.

Jonas looked slightly embarrassed. "We have to do something," he answered finally, once again revealing a disturbing lack of planning, forward thinking or preparation. Dear God...

He found the town of Chesterton in his mapbook, folded the corner of the page and closed the book. "Do you want to come with us?"

I felt my hands shake. I'd been watching quite a bit of Jonas' past exploits for the last few hours. The LonelyGirl15 videos had shown a lot; the constant breaking and entering, the puzzle hunts, the clue chases, the cowering and hiding and the regular high tensions and hurt feelings of the fugitive life. I'd watched my neighbors react to the relentless sense of danger and the persistent sense of threat. And now I was being offered a chance to be a part of it all. To stand with them and fight by their side.

"Ah," I said. "I really have a lot of programming projects to do next week. I think I'd better stay home."

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**11 January 2009 02:12 pm**

_**my new houseguest **_

My neighbors' van drove off this morning. I waved them good-bye, promised to water their plants and vacuum, and wondered how many of them were going to come back alive.

I went back to my apartment to find Gina sitting on my couch.

"Do you wish you'd gone too?" I asked. Gina had said good-bye to her friends last night, not wanting to see them drive away without her.

Gina didn't answer me, looking hesitant. She eventually replied, "I need to rest."

I remembered the pale, blank, blood-soaked girl I'd found at my doorstep. It hadn't even been a month since that night.

Gina had told me about how the Order had held her captive for almost two decades of her life. Then, after escaping, she'd been captured again. Her brilliant, wondrous freedom had been cut short within months.

This was her second period of freedom and now she'd never trust that she could keep it. She'd always be waiting for when it would be lost again.

I suddenly understood Gina's dislike for being indoors. She'd been held prisoner for most of her life. She was always wondering how much longer her freedom would last this time.

"Want to go to church?" I asked. "We could do some more work on our sketches and I could use more photo reference."

Gina went back to her apartment to get her sketchpad and a jacket.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**12 January 2009 11:35 am**

_**sleeping arrangements **_

Part of me wonders what sort of adventures Jonas, Daniel and Sarah are having without Gina and without me. The rest of me, however, has watched more of their video blogs. Most of their antics involve recovering secret files, religious texts, various chemical compounds, all of which serves to send them chasing after the next secret file, religious text, or assortment of chemical compounds. The repetition gave me a colossal headache that made me glad to stay home.

Home. That's a shifting set of borders right now. Gina was in my apartment with me last night. We were both sketching on the couch and started yawning at the same time. I'd suggested bed, Gina had agreed, and somehow, we found ourselves standing in the doorway to my bedroom, looking at my double-sized mattress.

"We'd both fit," I said uncertainly.

Gina made a nonchalant, "Hmm," sound and walked around the bed to the far end. She climbed atop the mattress and slipped under the covers. She sat in bed. "Well, come on," she said briskly.

Visions of Gina's firm arms wrapped around me burst through my head, as I imagined the softness of her cheeks and the warmth of her mouth and how sensitive her toes might be.

I returned to reality and regarded Gina with trepidation and nervousness. Then, something took over my legs and forced them to move the rest of me towards the bed. It was like an out of body experience as I lifted the blankets and got in.

I sat next to Gina, not daring to look at her. I almost wanted to pretend she wasn't there except I could feel her body heat from where I was sitting. And now she was moving. Eventually, I summoned the will to glance briefly to my right. Gina had pulled herself underneath the covers and was now lying on her back.

I lay down next to her. I could feel my pulse throbbing. I felt the surface of the bed pulsing, as though there were shifting tectonic plates following me and only me around.

Shaking, I turned my head to look at Gina. She turned her head to look at me. We lay next to each other, regarding each other. And then I felt a strange warmth moving through my body, and I forgot the thumping sound in my neck and chest and there was only the kindness and serenity of Gina's features and her perfect nose and the curious way her hair dropped over her lips.

And then I looked at Gina as a whole instead of simply the parts of her face I wanted to touch.

Gina was regarding me the way she might look at difficult Sunday crossword; she could understand the word-description, but she hadn't any idea what the word might be. And she certainly had no idea what letters to put in the boxes she had available.

"Why are you so flushed and nervous?" she asked bluntly.

I don't even remember what I said, something about the chili we'd had for dinner, and then I curled up on my side of the bed and let myself drift off. In retrospect, I suppose I should have realized that Gina had about as much sexuality as a loaf of bread. Given the isolation and the trauma and her existence as a labrat, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

The next morning, I suggested we stay in Gina's apartment, where we'd have separate bedrooms, and she agreed it'd be a good idea.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**12 January 2009 06:41 pm**

_**digital memories **_

Ever since my trip to the UCLA artistic wing, I'd been thinking of that digitally crafted collage. Gina and I are working on something similar, and I'd suggested that we eventually scan our separate drawings and combine them on the computer. Today, I brought the scanner home. When I say home, I mean my neighbor's apartment. I'm presently staying in Jonas' room. It was alarmingly undecorated except for two photographs; one of him standing next to a brunette girl with blonde streaks, one of him next to a girl with jet black hair.

I set up the scanner on one side of the dining room table. Gina was still working on today's sketches, but she gave me an older sketchbook of drawings she hoped to digitally preserve in case of any accidental coffee spills.

I flipped through it and was surprised to find sketches of the location where Gina and I usually sit to sketch the church. It was the same grove of trees, usually behind us, which were at the forefront of these sketches. There was the same path, leading to the pond through the trees. It was the same pond Gina and I would walk around after sketching, Gina skipping stones, me worrying a bout the fish. This wasn't simply a similar landscape; the path could be seen through the gaps between the trees the same way in real life as it was in Gina's sketches.

The sketchbook was full and dated, 03/08.

I ventured into the living room. Gina was sitting on the couch, legs curled up and arms wrapped around her knees.

I held up the sketch of the trees, path and pond. "You drew this before you'd ever seen it."

She knew where this was going. She didn't look at me as she explained.

"I couldn't remember my life as a kid. The experiments took it all away from me. But I could remember faces and scenes. I remembered this."

Gina rested her chin on the top of her knees.

"It's a place I went to, all the time. I was taken there. I still am, inside my head. Where we sat today -- down the path from the lake -- I've been drawing it since Daniel got me away from the Order. When you drove us to the gallery -- we passed by the church. I knew what it was."

"But," I protested, "we haven't been drawing the trees or the lake."

"I was trying to go back into my memory," said Gina, "and turn around to look in the opposite direction. If I'd been looking out a window, what was behind it? I couldn't just walk in and let my imagination fill in the blanks; I had to sketch the building and let the memories come."

"What's come back?" I asked.

Gina held out a hand and I handed her the sketchpad.

She flipped to the page of the woman with dark eyes; eyes that Gina never drew, but hid in shadow.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**13 January 2009 03:02 pm**

_**back to school **_

We returned to the church today, but this time, Gina didn't want to sit down outside or observe from a bench, and she didn't even bring a sketchpad.

We went in through the front door. The pews were empty. The pastor's platform and podium were clear. It was the first time I'd been in here, but then I noticed the crest at the front of the hall. It was the symbol of the Hymn of One.

"Not here," said Gina. She turned and pointed to a side door, leading to a flight of stairs downward. On the sub-level, Gina found an exit door and pushed it open. Outside the door was a small outdoor parking lot. Gina peered outside but didn't step out.

"They brought me in through here," said Gina. "I couldn't have been more than eight or nine. I don't know how long this went on -- I just know I got used to it. I was driven here and escorted through the door."

Gina let the door swing shut and led me into the depths of the church's basement. There were windows near the ceiling that peered outside on a ground-level.

We stopped in a small, clear, carpeted room with two desks and a blackboard before it.

"I was taught here," said Gina.

"Taught what?" I asked.

"Math," answered Gina. "Binomials. Fractions. Consonants and vowels. Capitals of countries. They taught me to read and write, add and subtract."

"I'm going to assume these weren't happy school days," I said.

"They weren't meant to be happy," Gina answered. "They were meant to make me a better test subject. They taught me how to read and write, how to tell colors apart, how to express pain, how to explain what I was feeling. That way they could tell if how my awareness and brain activity was reacting. And I could tell them that my vision was blurring, that I was tired, that the needles in my side hurt, that I felt like I was dying, that I couldn't move my arms, that I couldn't... "

She broke off, and there was a hatred burning in her I'd never seen before. She moved towards the exit, then paused at the door.

Scratched in the door frame was Gina's name.

"She told me it was going to be my last day here," Gina whispered, almost talking to herself. "I begged her not to let it end; this was the only place where I didn't feel like a petri dish, but she said it was over, and I didn't want my school to forget that I'd been here... "

"Who told you?" I demanded. "The woman in your sketches? Who is she?"

Gina tore out of the room. I raced after her. Gina took a different exit, up the stairs, and as I charged after her, I suddenly noticed a window by the stairs. The window faced the back end of the church, showing the trees and the path and the lake.

I pushed out the door to find Gina standing with her back to me, her head lowered, but she was still and unmoving.

"She did this to me," Gina whispered, "she's been behind it all along."

She turned around to face me and I couldn't tell the rage from the grief. "Help me find her."

"What happens then?" I asked.

"She dies."

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**13 January 2009 05:29 pm**

_**loveless **_

It was a very awkward lunch. I gobbled up a chicken salad and a grilled-cheese sandwich, while Gina stared blankly at her bottle of water and poked at a bowl of rice pudding with a spoon. And I had to order the rice pudding for her. Gina, having issued a declaration of murderous intent, no longer seemed capable of speech.

I didn't know what to say. Part of me wanted to point out that she hadn't suffered that badly; my homeschooling had been fairly cold and result-oriented as well. But my parents had been accommodating my fear of the human race. Gina's caregivers had given her a childhood that was barer and blanker than my apartment walls.

(Must do something about that.)

Gina spooned out a raisin from the pudding, then lowered the spoon. This was repeated twelve times and at last I broke the silence. "Isn't it better to know?"

She didn't respond, but her face grew even tighter.

"Daniel told me that there was a doctor who took care of you? Dr. Calvin Hart? I saw a little of him in the videos."

At that Gina's figure coiled up and I had a feeling that this was the wrong avenue entirely. It would be best to be quiet.

"Wasn't Dr. Hart your friend?" I asked.

Gina pushed the bowl of pudding back. For a moment, I thought she would leave and I'd be finishing lunch alone, but finally, she started talking again.

"He called me his soulmate," said Gina. "He told me that he taking care of me, that he loved me."

I decided to ignore that Dr. Hart had to have been about twenty years older than Gina. "Well, there you go. That's --"

"Delusional," Gina snapped. "He was using me for his experiments, he saw me as a walking chemistry set for him to mix and match. He couldn't handle what he was doing to me, so he rationalized it as care and treatment, he convinced himself that he was in love with me so he could continue his work."

Actually, that sounded about right to me. I did want to point out that Dr. Hart had eventually let Gina go and lost his life in the process, but at that point, Gina had been locked in the lab for most of her twenty years on the planet. Perhaps it had been too little, too late.

"If you know that Dr. Hart didn't love you," I suggested, "maybe it's because you've got something real to compare it with now. You've got Jonas, Sarah, Daniel -- "

Gina shook her head furiously. "Daniel doesn't. Don't. Just -- just don't." There was a bitterness here that frightened me, and then it was like Gina couldn't stop the torrent of words that came. "Daniel just wants his best friend back. He looks at me the way he looks at an old photograph of Bree, he thinks I'm his second chance since Bree loved Jonas instead of him. And Jonas looks at me like I'm a bird with a broken wing."

And what about me? I wanted to ask. But I didn't. I simply sat and listened, letting my remaining half of my grilled-cheese grow cold.

"Someone made me into this," Gina told me, "and I'm going to find her."

It was at this point that I realized Gina hadn't backed out of her friends' roadtrip to recover and sketch churches with me. She'd known she'd been onto something with the church; she'd been recovering her memories piece by piece until this morning, when her education had come back.

I searched her face and found no warmth, no kindness, no mercy.

And no chance that she might relinquish her rice pudding, either, I'd have to order my own...

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**13 January 2009 09:04 pm**

_**the face of evil **_

Gina and I sat quietly at a table in a nearby library. With our laptops, we started accessing every scanned and archived newspaper we could find relating to the Caldwell Chapel -- the church where Gina had been tutored. There was a coldness to Gina I had never seen before, as she accessed microfilm and turned page after page of preserved newspaper clippings. The only thing on the church website was its address.

After several hours, Gina and I arranged everything we'd found in chronological order and worked our way to the present. The church had first been opened in 1771, as the personal project of the Mortlain family. The family had made its wreath in mining and named the church after a son who had died in infancy. During the American Revolution, the Caldwell Chapel was raided and destroyed by British troops, but reconstructed through the efforts of a group of arms merchants. A spokesman, Gerald Brighton, had described it as his effort to rebuild what his weapons had destroyed. In 1874, the chapel expanded from an expensive but modestly-sized building into extensive multiple wings, through generous donations and supervision from a mining family named the Wendalls. However, the property had fallen into disrepair during the Depression and had been shut down from use in 1937. In 1971, however, the property was repurchased and the church restored by a real estate firm, the initiative headed by one Christina Malis. And in 1996, the surrounding park and wooded areas were also bought up by the present owner, a Lucinda Laurentis.

In every incarnation, the church had been a place of gathering and worship for the religion called the Hymn of One. It had been the first of its order on American shores.

Gina and I set side by side portraits and photographs of every group that had been involved in the church over the centuries; the Mortlains, the Brighton group, the Wendalls, the real estate firm, and the present owner.

The Mortlains, the Brighton group and the Wendall family showed at least five or six people in each family portrait, and every single of these portraits had the same face in each of them. The same face was found in a photograph of Christina Malis and a photograph of Lucinda Laurentis. It was a blonde woman with a cold expression and eyes that never seemed to meet the light. It was the woman in Gina's sketches.

"Who is she?" I asked Gina.

"She's had many names," Gina answered, "but my friends call her Lucy."

"Are you sure it's her?" I wondered. "It could be a coincidence; this portrait of the Mortlains was taken in 1795, this photograph of Laurentis is from 1992, it -- "

"You know what trait positive blood does," Gina told me, not even letting me finish working through my doubts. "She's been there since the beginning of it all -- she was there with my sister when Bree was being prepared for the Ceremony, she's the one who ordered every test on me, every procedure, every... "

"You've met her before," I realized.

"I've run from her before," Gina responded. "Every time we were pursued, she'd turn up. We knew from the sight of her that the Order was near, we assumed she their agent -- "

"But if she's been there since the beginning -- "

"Then she's the one in charge," said Gina. "Every time my friends and I tried to track down the Order, we'd be told the ones giving the orders were Lord Carruthers or William Porter or some interchangeable face or name. The Order's kept going even as they've fallen out of the picture."

Gina's fingers traced over Christina Malis' face and then picked up Lucinda Laurentis' headshot. "She's been masquerading as a lieutenant when she's been the leader all along."

Gina was gripping the photograph with fingers that were as pale as death, and for a moment, Gina's eyes were as dark as Lucy's.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**14 January 2009 06:24 pm**

_**the killer in me **_

Gina's asleep. I've left one of our computers running an automatic search through county court records and real estate files. There's no way of knowing if Lucy is still using the same name she did in 1996, she's had so many.

I've been watching some of the older video blogs and Lucy's been there throughout, always as the Order's representative. She's a queen who works amongst her people as a common foot-soldier. And she's turned my friend, gentle, sweet, artistic, kind Gina, into someone who intends to murder her.

I've never wanted to kill anyone, not ever. Except Sarah after I got drunk. And Jonas when he kicked in my door. But there's a significant difference in wanting someone out of your existence and planning on putting them out of theirs.

When I was younger, I read a horror story about a countess who bathed in the blood of young girls to retain eternal youth. I always felt grim satisfaction when the countess had her head chopped off at the end of the story. In terms of pure historical fact, the woman was only put under house arrest. The beheaded countess was a fiction. Could I ever feel that way about a real person of flesh and blood?

But this person left Gina on my doorstep in a bloody mess, killed Gina's sister. I think of how Daniel and Jonas spoke of Bree. Daniel's powerlessness and grief has only been suppressed, not dulled and Jonas -- Jonas didn't even need to say it for me to realize that Jonas had been in love with her. Jonas was just like me, probably; living alone in a box with no way out until Bree came into his life, and when she died, Jonas probably felt trapped inside again. Lucy has taken so much from these people -- and it's because of these people that I didn't run screaming home on day two.

I'm letting my search run even as I wonder if I can bring myself to help Gina do what she plans to do. By letting the search run, I'm helping her. By not locking Gina up, I'm helping her. But can I watch the light fade from another human being's eyes and know I made it happen?

Gina doesn't have to do this. She's never been to high school, but her friends and their connections and stolen software have created a fake diploma. Gina's never been to a library but grasped the filing system inside of three minutes and found everything she wanted within hours. Gina's life never exposed her to computers, cameras, film editing or art, yet within months, she was adept with all this unfamiliar technology. Gina's upbringing should have left her the social incompetent I am, yet she is pleasant and endearing. She doesn't have to be a killer. She could be anything she wants. She could go to school, she could make a life for herself and leave it all behind.

But I watch her sleeping now, and I see her arms wrapped around herself protectively, the way she shifts awkwardly, and I know Gina lives in fear of the day Lucy or Lucy's agents catch up to her again.

I understand.

My computer's telling me it's found something.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**15 January 2009 12:00 am**

_**gallery of death **_

**BACKDATED-ENTRY3920x06**

Breaking and entering. It's not my activity of choice. It's why I really didn't want to go on a roadtrip of any kind with my neighbors. Yet, here we were, five miles outside the Los Angeles city limits, sneaking in the back of a mansion where Lucinda Laurentis had set up autopay accounts for utility bills.

Through various illegal measures, Gina and I had procured all the floorplans and security layouts of the mansion. Well, mostly Gina. I told her what to do and she did the typing on her own laptop. Admittedly, even this legal distancing measure turned out to be completely pointless when Gina needed to get to the mansion somehow and then revealed to me that she'd never actually driven a car before. Even with her strange ability to absorb new skills like a sponge, I didn't really feel comfortable handing her my car keys. We drove to a wide field, where on the other end was the back wall of Lucy's estate. Gina said good-bye to me and started walking across, lugging a swimbag of tools.

She was about twenty feet away when I charged after her. I just couldn't let her go alone.

Our information gathering had procured approximately thirteen different security systems -- and those were only the ones we'd encounter when breaking in. The first was to remotely control the heat sensors on the wall and alter the readings so the margin allowing for birds was raised to let human beings climb over without tripping the alarm. The second was to freeze the security camera images for two minutes to allow Gina and me to reach a back maintenance entrance. The third was to alter the timed unlocking from 9 AM to 11:45 PM on the previous night. And so on and so forth.

Gina and I seemed to have very different views of the plan. I wanted to stop every seven minutes to make sure that we had an escape route for each step of the way in case of being discovered. Gina wanted to charge ahead. The strangest thing was that we'd expected to have to slip past four guards at two security gatehouses, but they were strangely unmanned.

After twenty-seven nerve-racking minutes, Gina and I were finally where we wanted to be -- well, where she wanted to be. I wanted to be at home, tucked up in bed. Gina wanted to be in a central hall inside the mansion. We weren't sure what was behind the ornate set of double-doors behind us, except that the floorplans indicated it was a very large room with two floor levels. They also told us that the entire room was lined with steel plating five inches thick, with six unlockable exits, also lined by steel. This gigantic bomb shelter was a black hole of electrical wiring and security; it apparently had its own private generator, it was cut off from the security systems of the rest of the mansion. Whatever was in there was known only to the owner. And soon, to us as well.

Through an extremely dull software cloning process too tiresome to describe. I made the secret hall's independent security system match the rest of the mansion's and used a programmed key card to unlock the door and let us in.

Gina and I found ourselves inside a two-floor museum. Against the walls were various paintings, throughout the room were glass display cases and plaques on stands. There were electronic monitors with scrolling readouts or videos playing, and at the end of the room farthest from us was a staircase leading to the second level.

We approached the first display case. Inside was a human skull. I hoped it was a prop like the other rubbish we'd seen inside the Eternal Quest storage space. Unfortunately, the monitor next to the display showed the text of an archaeological journal article. Gina and I read the display, using the touch-sensitive screen to scroll down the page.

The article described the skull as an early remnant from the first recorded instance of human cannibalism during a severe famine in 6th century Russia. The skull was described as that of a teenaged girl's. The article described how that the dig site had been where a small village had once stood, and how it and a few other areas had also held similar indications of cannibalistic attacks. It described the means used to prepare human flesh, the disposal of the remains being separate from those dead of natural causes and buried -- and how there had been a specifically high instance of the victims being young girls.

Gina and I were repulsed. We knew what this meant. This display described the origin of using trait positive girls for an extended lifespan.

Not wanting to linger a moment longer than we had to, we moved ahead and examined the next display. This time, the display was less alarming. It was aged parchment, preserved and encase in a vacuum sealed environment, mounted on a tiny stand. It seemed harmless enough, mostly because I couldn't read it. Then Gina examined the monitor next to the case. The parchment described a combination of nitrate and additional minerals that would react with a certain blood type and allow one to identify it. The parchment had been written by a tenth century alchemist.

Feeling numb, Gina and I moved onto the next display. This wasn't in a case; it was a flatscreen monitor framed like a painting. And the monitor did display a painting; of a blonde-haired woman in richly layered clothing with blood-red lips and eyes darker than shadow. Gina and I knew the face; it was Lucy. But a small, scrolling text piece at the base of the monitor described the image as a digital reproduction of a portrait of the Countess Elizabeth Bathory -- a Hungarian noblewoman who had been convicted for murdering at least 600 young girls in the belief that bathing in their blood would grant eternal youth.

I felt sick. Gina and I tore our eyes from the painting and moved on.

The next display case showed a small pamphlet, yellowed with time and yet legible. A touch-sensitive monitor next to the case allowed Gina to open the pamphlet and read every page. It described the purity of the Eternal Song, how following it would allow for impure and unwanted influences to be drowned out.

Elizabeth Bathory -- Lucy -- had gone from massacring young women to inducting mass numbers into a cult. The beliefs of the Hymn of One justified the isolated environment and controlled nature of a trait positive family.

Gina said it was an efficient strategy; less waste, less chance of being caught in a witch burning, because it would no longer be necessary to consume hundreds just to find one trait positive girl. Lucy must have been the first, or at least one of the first. She'd begun with caving in skulls and eating people, and eventually moved onto drinking blood, and then transfusing it into her own body.

Away from the display cases were various biographies of numerous lives; Cassandra Mortlain, Eleanor Brighton, Rebecca Wendall, Christina Malis. They'd all been well-born women who'd possessed or acquired tremendous wealth. Each biography ended with an obituary. Each of these women, in their mid-thirties, had perished; they'd been in accidents, caught diseases. The identities had died. The woman had lived on to prey on new victims.

There were more newspaper clippings farther into the museum; they described how Lucinda Laurentis and her real estate holdings had received investment or assistance from wealthy individuals like William Porter or Lord Carruthers. There were also articles relating how Porter and Carruthers had been suffering from life-threatening conditions and given little time to live, but had recently declared that they'd been restored to health; their cancers had entered remission, their brain tumors had been removed without difficulty.

Dying, wealthy men -- who must have eagerly accepted Lucy's offer of trait positive blood in exchange for their financial support or influence. They weren't the leaders. They were the followers, providing Lucy with the resources to continue passing through the centuries, tracking down and holding onto trait positive girls, evading notice and attention. She must have been doing this for centuries.

We were at the far end of the museum now, against the wall and near the stairs. Mounted on the wall was a monitor, and what we saw made us stop dead on the floor.

The monitor showed Gina's face. This wasn't a live security cam feed; this was some sort of archived video. On the screen, Gina's expression was blank, yet she was blinking. Behind her was a wall so white it seemed antiseptic. On the monitor, Gina's image continued to gaze vacantly at the camera while the image turned negative and showed flashes of strobing light followed by darkness against Gina's face. The image instantly dimmed, as though to prevent epilepsy. And the image of Gina's face halved, to show a second video on the right. In the second video display, Gina lay on a medical bed, still and unmoving, an IV drip feeding into her body. And standing above Gina's form was a blonde woman in a black suit -- Lucy.

The video of Lucy and Gina paused and was replaced by another. It was of a young girl, no more than eight years-old, on a grassy lawn. I recognized her light brown hair and smile; it was Gina. And the darker girl standing in front of Gina -- about the same age, and embracing Gina in a hug -- it was Bree.

Text flashed over both videos, reading, IMPRINT SUCCESSFUL.

On the left, we continued to see strobe lights flashing onto Gina's unemotional face. And on the right, we saw videos of Gina drawing on a pad, sketching pensively. Again the text appeared: IMPRINT SUCCESSFUL.

On the left, Gina looking blank. On the right, she was sitting on a bed next to Daniel and smiling as Daniel spoke to her. IMPRINT SUCCESSFUL.

Gina under the strobe lights appeared another video of Gina reading a Nancy Drew novel. IMPRINT SUCCESSFUL.

Gina holding an iPod. IMPRINT SUCCESSFUL.

And on the right, strobe lights continued to flash on Gina's face.

I didn't understand what I was seeing, but Gina did. She explained.

These were video records of skills being streamed into her brain. No, not skills. Aptitude. Gina's childhood had been purposely kept blank. She had few memories of her past which made barring them from her consciousness easier. And then she'd been given the ability to gauge people and situations and immediately rework her personality to be advantageous.

Within minutes of meeting Bree for the first time, Gina had remolded herself to befriend her sister easily and immediately. Gina had escaped from the Order in a state of shock, but after little more than a week or two, she had endeared herself to everyone she knew. She'd learned how to talk with them, smile, play, and integrate herself. She'd known how to use a web camera the moment she looked at it, mastered YouTube video blogging, taught herself how to draw, and even known how to deal with the advances of others. None of this was Gina's natural ability; she'd been programmed this way from birth through hypnosis, sleep-learning and mental imprinting.

I watched Gina observing the video records of her childhood; she'd been treated like a hard drive instead of a person, then as a science experiment instead of a human being.

My parents only kept me indoors and away from people; the ones who cared for Gina had done far worse; this wasn't simply overprotectiveness or fear; this was dehumanisingly evil.

Gina's demeanor had grown tighter and harder with each display we passed, now I watched her hands form fists.

And then there was the tapping of footsteps. It was coming from the second level.

Gina and I looked up to see a woman approach the railing and lean over to look down at us. A woman with blonde hair wearing a sharp black suit.

Lucy gazed down at only Gina -- it was like I wasn't even in the room. And then Lucy beckoned to Gina with an abrupt wave. Gina started up the stairs.

I followed.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**15 January 2009 12:36 am**

_**gallery of death, continued**_

**34BACKDATED-ENTRY3e**

On the second level, the space was significantly narrower between the railing and the wall. We overlooked the display cases, and then Gina and I turned our attention to the walls. There was a seemingly endless line of portraits on the wall, and next to each portrait was a stand. On each stand rested a metal urn.

The first portrait we saw was of a middle-aged man; it was again, a framed flatscreen monitor with a photograph. A caption read, "Gerald Hawthorne Cavendish." I touched it and the caption vanished, replaced by text describing a nerve degeneration condition, which scrolled away to reveal a date for a transfusion. The date upon which Cavendish received a renewed life in exchange for the death of a trait positive girl. His death, 47 years after the transfusion, was listed as well.

Gina and I examined the stand next to the portrait. The urn was one used to carry the ashes of a cremated body. A small nameplate rested on the stand, reading, "Megan Galbraith." There wasn't even a photograph.

And each portrait that followed was the same; a photograph of the blood recipient, a text display describing the condition he or she had had, the date of the transfusion, the date of the death, decades later -- and the urn containing all that was left of the girl who had died. The remains of trait positive girls stood as testaments to the quiet, silent influence the Order had held throughout history, offering extended life to the wealthy and desperate. Politicians and presidents, captains of industry, lords and ladies were in the portraits.

We passed by twelve such displays in this gallery of death before we found ourselves facing a portrait of a bearded, dark-skinned man who had been suffering from muscular dystrophy. The portrait named him as Lord Rezaneth Carruthers. On the stand was a nameplate reading, "Bree Avery." But no urn rested on the stand.

I looked up sharply, meeting Gina's eyes, which were wide and unnerved.

"Don't get your hopes up," came a voice before us, and Lucy emerged out of shadow. She held an urn in her right hand and placed it firmly back on the stand. "I was just having it cleaned," she informed us. Informed Gina, really. Lucy didn't even glance in my direction.

Outrage surged through me. "You're insane," I declared. There was nothing else to describe this tribute to murder and cannibalism.

At last, Lucy cast her eyes in my direction, and there was nothing in her expression except cool appraisal. She regarded me as though I was a leg of lamb hanging at the butcher's and I wasn't much to her liking.

"The blood was true. Blood is all that matters. Blood like mine," Lucy said. She wasn't talking to me. She was talking to Gina. "Blood like yours."

Gina involuntarily shivered and I felt everything inside me rally to her defence.

"How many trait positive girls," I asked, "have you said the same thing to?" I stepped forward as much as I dared. "How many of them did you say were chosen and special -- before you bled them dry?"

My words didn't seem to reach Lucy. She kept staring at Gina as though she'd found a cherished and long sought for prize. Lucy was watching Gina with something she didn't have when she looked at me; it was respect and need and even ownership.

"I don't know," Gina said through clenched teeth to Lucy, "what you mean."

Lucy reached into a pocket and withdrew a small remote control. She pointed it at the portrait of Lord Carruthers. His face vanished, replaced by an unshaven, nervous man. It was Dr. Calvin Hart.

"Patient 11's ribozyme regeneration rate," Hart said, "is unlike that of other girls of her blood type. It reacts to ribozyme injection by increasing its own supply to match what is added. Her regeneration capacity seems to have no limit." There was a static burst, and Dr. Hart appeared again, in closer focus.

"The trait positive blood therapy," said Dr. Hart, "would have a most beneficial effect for Patient 11. It would increase her body's ability to rejuvenate and renew itself; continued blood therapy over the course of several years would allow for perpetual cell regeneration. With most patients, the blood therapy merely induces enhanced healing. With Patient 11, her aging process itself might be arrested after a decade or two of treatment."

And then the screen went blank.

"You're not like the other cattle," Lucy said, and her cold voice seemed to strike a note of admiration, even pride. "Bree, Emma, Genevieve and Nadia were vessels I could drain into the fountain of youth. You and I are the ones who'll drink from it.

"Porter and Carruthers were pawns. A few quarts of blood for them meant a few more decades, a few more drops of life. They'd wither and decompose no matter how much they took. But the two of us, Gina, could outsit eternity with a goblet by the fountain.

"Your friend here," said Lucy, gesturing contemptuously at me, "isn't long for this world. A few minutes at best -- and if she'd stayed away from here, maybe another fifty years? I will live forever, Gina -- and so can you."

I had never seen such revulsion and disgust on Gina's face.

"I'll never be like you," Gina spat.

Lucy aimed her remote at the monitor again. It flashed once more to show new footage. But this wasn't the clinical lab footage; it was inside a cabin. Clips played of Jonas, Daniel and Sarah talking and dancing. it was some sort of party; Jonas, Daniel and Sarah were dressed in outrageously dressy clothes -- and Gina was there too.

I watched, fascinated, as one clip showed the back of Jonas' head with a laser-red dot trained on him. And then I saw Gina rush forward, pushing him out of the way as a gunshot rang out. The video stopped, resting on a still frame of Gina's unconscious form, lying on the floor.

"So what?" Gina snapped. "Your sniper grazed me. You took me, put me under, threw me back in the lab again."

"Not quite," Lucy answered.

The shot changed; now on the monitor, we saw Gina lying in a medical bed. Next to her were heart and brainwave monitors, and the readings were dropping. Gina was dying.

"This never happened," protested Gina. But doubt marked her face; this was the period between her recapture and escape; she couldn't remember, all she'd known was that she was alive and had survived.

The footage played on. A woman with blonde hair entered the frame. Off camera, a voice declared, "Her vitals are slipping. She'll be critical in five minutes."

And on the screen, Lucy answered, "Good."

The footage cut to a shot of Gina again lying on a medical bed, but in a different location. Her vitals had dropped almost completely. And then the shot widened to show that Gina was lying next to another stretcher, upon which another girl rested. And a blood-transfusion unit was siphoning the blood out of this other girl -- and into Gina's body.

The screen went blank yet Gina's face was anything but.

"Nadia -- " she whispered.

"Was that her name?" Lucy said, as though amused. "I can never keep track, that's why I keep this place."

"How could you -- ?" Gina protested. "She was a human being. Her name was Nadia Dalton. She had a brother named Mark, she made kites, her dream was to build a sailboat and you killed her for -- "

"Your blood was true and hers was made as food for you," Lucy replied, taking no notice of Gina's grief. "We're the same."

Gina clapped a hand over her mouth as though trying not to vomit. She couldn't take her eyes off her wrists, as though examining the very veins where an innocent girl's blood now flowed.

"I've extended considerable effort to make you worth my while," Lucy continued, ignoring Gina's sickened reaction. "We're all seeking those like ourselves. But what I couldn't find, I made. I made you -- the daughter of my efforts."

Gina backed away, as though Lucy's mere presence was poisonous.

"You've always thought yourself a little girl," asked Lucy, "soaking wet in the rain, crying for your mother. I've been waiting.

"Welcome home."

At that, Gina reached into her jacket, whipped out a pistol, took aim at Lucy's throat and pulled the trigger twice.

Lucy toppled over railing of the balcony and fell, crashing into a display case and resting impaled on the glass below.

Gina lowered the gun and returned it to her jacket. Her eyes were red but she was calm. She didn't even look down at Lucy's body, turning away to take Bree's urn in hand and place it into her bag before walking back towards the stairs.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed, trailing behind her. "Where did you get a gun?"

"The last time I escaped," Gina answered tonelessly, "I took one off a guard Jonas cold-clocked. I knew I'd be needing it soon enough."

On the base level, Gina and I walked past Lucy's body.

"Worst mom ever," I declared, jabbering uncontrollably. "You know, that diner we went to last time is probably still open, I bet we could get some really great pancakes at this hour and -- "

Right when I mentioned pancakes, there was suddenly a painful wheeze from Lucy's body. Gina and I watched in frightened astonishment as Lucy sat up, with shards of glass protruding from her body and a bloody tear in her throat. She pulled herself off the display case and dropped to the floor in a crouch, choking, gasping, but alive. She spat out two bullets onto the floor between us. She pressed a hand to her left knee and snapped it back into place.

Bloody in her face and throat, broken in her body, by all rights dead -- Lucy stood before us alive.

She limped towards us. Towards Gina.

"So, table for three then," I said helplessly.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**15 January 2009 12:44 am**

_**constant companion **_

**BACKDATED-ENTRY658x54**

"I think of death as an old friend," Lucy rasped through the blood that dripped from her mouth. She moved towards us. Every step made a crunching, popping sound. This was couldn't be happening. I willed my feet to move but I couldn't make it happen.

"Perhaps you require an introduction," Lucy said, her voice beginning as a deathly croak but growing stronger with each word.

She stooped to pick up her remote from the floor. I could hear bone grinding as she rose and pressed two separate buttons with bloody fingers.

First, a hatch on the floor slid back, and a metallic stand holding a small vial of thick red liquid. Then, a loud, clear beep, once per second, began to sound from every corner of the museum.

"The first thing I did after laying the foundations of this room," Lucy informed Gina, "was line them with explosives. I've updated the detonators over the years but the consequences are the same. This entire estate will burn in a firestorm -- " she checked her watch. " -- in six minutes and twenty-two seconds. Twenty-one -- "

Gina grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the exit, only to stop when three black-clad guards carrying pistols stormed through the doors. Ski-masks obscured their faces, and they stood, implacably barring us from leaving.

Lucy pulled the vial of red liquid from the stand. With agonizing progress, she made her way to Gina. "The purest distillation of trait positive blood. Not a transfusion," she said, "but enough for one like us. Drink the vial and your body will heal from anything in the explosion. We'll rise again. Refuse and die."

"You are out of your mind!" I shouted. I looked at the guards. "Did you hear her? You'll all be killed!"

"My soldiers have faith in their blood," Lucy answered, and I realized that her security staff were all probably assuming they'd be around after the explosion to file a complaint about employee safety.

Lucy's attention was only for Gina as she held out the vial of blood to Gina.

"You don't belong with your 'friends,'" Lucy told Gina. "They're children. They play games I set. They fight for prizes I arranged. You don't need their love or care, just the certainty that it's yours to take. We can give them their pathetic victory, and while they're congratulating each other, we'll begin again. You're my daughter. Taste your eternity now."

"An eternity of what?" I demanded. "There's nothing in this gallery that shows creativity or passion, only some pointless desire to perpetuate yourself at the expense of everyone else. The only reason you go on living is because you're afraid to die."

Lucy ignored me -- and the fear I described, I suddenly saw in Gina's face -- as Lucy held survival, life and safety in her fingers and held it out to my friend.

And Gina's face was stricken as she turned to me, and Lucy looked on with a twisted understanding. "Afraid to leave your friend to die?" Lucy realized. "I have a solution."

Gina reached into her jacket and brought the gun to bear on Lucy's face, but Lucy shifted her feet, and with centuries of experience, easily side-stepped Gina's line of fire. A hand swept out to knock the weapon from Gina's grasp. A fist slammed into Gina's stomach. Gina doubled over.

Lucy grabbed Gina around the waist with one arm while forcing the other against Gina's throat, immobilizing her.

And then Lucy issued her orders to the guards: "Shoot my daughter's friend in the knees, then the stomach. And you," she said, addressing Gina. "Observe every every dying breath. Every rattle as the body expels itself dry and goes cold and still. You'll learn to savor the sight, I promise you will."

The guards moved into the room, each taking position, forming a perfect triangle around me, guns raised and ready to fire.

**

**POSTED BY JONAS WHARTON**

**15 January 2009 12:45 am**

_**We will not be stopped. **_

**2390320backdated34r**

**JONAS**

_We were on the road again. It was like I'd never been away from Sarah and Daniel. And yet, it was different. We all missed Gina, and I could see Daniel was a little downcast to let her go, but Sarah cheered him up with a game of I-Spy and suggesting we get Gina a different air freshener from every truckstop on the way to Chesterton. Daniel and I experimented with all sorts of burger toppings at roadside diners, and Sarah spared us any withering remarks when we spent an hour gargling water after a chili sauce incident. We weren't a bickering gang of teenaged angst anymore; we were a team._

_It was also a nice change to be moving towards something rather than away from something._

_We got into Chesterton and immediately set up stakeout points around the local Hymn of One church. We planted spy cameras and bugs, we stole address books from the offices, and we watched and waited._

_With the information Sarah cloned off the Eternal Quest server, we were able to sight and track each and every planted member of the Hymn of One. Some people really were just men in cheap suits in sunglasses, and some were actual actors, paid to follow around one specific family and give them the impression that the Hymn of One was always keeping watch._

_From Monday onward, we all realized that the actors were centering around the McClory family. Mr. Randall McClory. Mrs. Jemina McClory. And their 15-year-old daughter, Shiva. Eternal Quest had made sure that every time the McClorys looked over their shoulders, there'd be something for them to see._

_My friends and I split in three. Sarah followed Shiva. I followed Mr. McClory. Daniel followed Mrs. McClory._

_Sarah observed that Shiva had only one friend, a slightly older girl named Lena, and changed to following Lena. Sarah managed to record Lena talking into a cell phone, reporting on Shiva's activities, state of mind and family life to someone in the Order._

_I watched Mr. McClory at his job at a pharmacist. After he finished his shift, he emerged from work to be cornered by a couple thugs dressed up as Watchers. They ordered him to cancel the family vacation to Italy. When he protested, they threw him into a wall and threatened his wife._

_And Daniel saw Mrs. McClory followed by a Watcher who stopped her from entering a grocery store, ordering her to only buy food at the shops the Hymn of One approved of -- or rather, shops within the surveillance zone of the Hymn of One._

_We recorded and videotaped everything. And after the third day, we planted a prepaid cell phone in Mr. McClory's car and called him when he started driving home from work. We rented a car for him and left it for him in a grocery store parking lot. We instructed him to switch cars and drive to a truckstop a few miles out of town. We met him at a diner. We sat across him at a table and we showed him all our footage. And then we told him everything we knew about the Ceremony and what fate was being prepared for his daughter. We showed him our footage of the McClorys being terrorized. We told him he needed to go to the authorities._

_He protested that he couldn't. He'd seen Hymn of One members everywhere; in the police, at work, at church, in every shop and restaurant. The Hymn of One had people everywhere. And we told him what we'd found when we'd broken into EQ's storage locker._

_The Order didn't have people everywhere. They just wanted the families to think they did._

_McClory only gaped at us. "I don't... " he stammered. "These people. They're always watching my family, they know when Shiva's been late for school, they have the phone ringing the moment I walk into my house, they know how long it's been since I've had an oil change for the car. You're asking me to defy them, to put my family in danger, to risk everything -- "_

_"Risk?" Daniel repeated, and his voice was like acid. McClory fell silent. Daniel didn't grab McClory by the collar or even raise his voice, but McClory recoiled as though Daniel had. "From the moment you let Shiva into your life, you've been marching her towards her death. And you have the nerve to sit there and say fighting back might put her at risk?"_

_McClory couldn't meet Daniel's eyes, looking left, right, and then down at his lap._

_Daniel's tone went flat and cold. "You want us to promise your wife and daughter will be safe? We can't. What we're offering you is a choice."_

_Daniel reached into his jacket and slid his cell phone across the table. "You can call a cab to take you back to your car, or you can help us help you."_

_McClory didn't look up. But he reached out for the phone -- and pushed it back to Daniel._

_One phone call and five hours later, Agents Whitcomb and Aliziano had arrived. They took Mr. McClory's statement, accepted our footage, and thanked us. They told me not to buy into the Hymn of One myths about blood giving eternal life, pointing out that many cults deluded themselves into believing in the supernatural to justify their murderous acts._

_Whitcomb and Aliziano communicated what we'd found to their superiors. Within a few more hours, FBI and INTERPOL raids were taking place around the US and in the United Kingdom. The eight trait positive families were taken into protective custody. The trait positive girls were secured. Numerous members of the Order were arrested for threats, operations against government officials, kidnapping and murder._

_Sarah, Daniel and I sat in a diner watching Agent Whitcomb talk on the phone as the Order at last came crashing down._

_We had chili fries when we were done. McClory had several cups of decaf._

_I once told the Order that I would take everything from them, leaving them with only the hollow shell they hid behind. I hadn't realized that the hollow shell was all that there had ever been._

_I took the wheel as we drove back towards LA and Gina. Sarah sat in the backseat, reading newspaper articles about the exposure of the Order on her cell phone browser. And Daniel sat in the front with me, silent and sad._

_I understood why. He was thinking about Bree. If he and Bree had just gone to the police when Bree's parents had disappeared, Bree would be alive. He'd had the power to save Bree's life -- Bree had had the power to save her own -- and they'd let it slip through their fingers._

_We drove past the highway leading back to my own house -- the house my parents had left me -- and I ignored it. Daniel needed to see Gina. I did too. We needed to remember that the Order hadn't taken everything of Bree._

_I glanced at Daniel from time to time. He'd closed his eyes and rested his head against the window._

_"Guys!" Sarah shouted from the backseat, startling Daniel awake._

_"What? Bathroom break?" I asked, slowing the car._

_"Don't slow down!" Sarah ordered. "I just checked Alexis' blog. There's trouble."_

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**15 January 2009 12:49 am**

_**ashes to ashes **_

**BACKDATED-ENTRY9895e**

The guards surrounded me, guns raised. I dared look up only for a moment and saw one guard with his pistol leveled at me, while behind him, Lucy looked on hungrily through bloodied eyes. I shut my eyes, bracing myself for unimaginable agony.

"Drink it, Gina!" I screamed.

I waited for the gunshots, thinking that of all the ways to die, I really hadn't anticipated being gunned down in a serial killer's gallery owned by a preposterously old woman who harvested the blood of teenaged girls to use in some deadly pseudo-religious ritual. I always assumed it would be something stupid like tripping over my own feet. I hoped I'd remembered to turn the lights off at my apartment and I tried to take solace in the knowledge that I'd finished my coding for the week.

I heard a thump. I opened my eyes.

Lucy was dropping away from Gina. The guard in front of me had thrust his pistol into the side of Lucy's head. He pulled off his ski-mask. It was Jonas.

The other two guards unmasked as well. They were Sarah and Daniel.

Gina grinned at Sarah. "I thought you were a little short for a stormtrooper," she said to her, while grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the door.

"Six minute countdown to massive explosion, right?" said Daniel. "Front door, now!"

And none of us needed telling twice. We raced for the door. Gina stopped briefly to pick up Lucy's remote as Lucy crawled for it, and I saw her tap a key on it before moving for the exit.

I heard a firm, hard slamming sound behind me as I left the museum, into the hallway, hot on the heels of Jonas, Daniel and Sarah, with Gina right behind me.

As the front door of the mansion came into sight, I felt my lungs were ready to explode, but Gina passed me and shouted for me to move and I forced my feet to keep going.

The five of us were at the gates bordering the estate when a fiery roar sounded from behind us. I turned to watch an internal storm of fire erupt from inside the mansion, bringing the exterior crumbling inward and collapsing on itself.

We watched the flames, a pyre to the Hymn of One, the Order, and anyone who stood with them.

"We have to go back," said Jonas. "I have seen that woman swallow cyanide and walk away; she could still be alive."

"We don't need to go back," Gina said, watching the flames with an unreadable expression. Jonas waited for her to explain, and when Gina didn't, he turned to me.

I held up my PDA, showing him the floor plans we'd found. "We didn't know what was inside the museum, but we did find out that it's surrounded in steel plates between every wall. Impenetrable by fire, except for the front entrance. The steel plate needs to be triggered to drop down, close off the museum and turn it into a bomb shelter."

Gina was still holding Lucy's little remote control in her hand. "I set it off," she whispered.

"Okay," said Jonas, "but there've got to be other ways out, escape hatches -- "

"Six," said Gina. Jonas stopped.

"Before we went in there," I explained, "we found all the hatches. We brought along a welding torch and we sealed them up."

Jonas, Daniel and Sarah watched the blazing wreckage of Lucy's mansion with new understanding. It was now Lucy's tomb. She was trapped inside her gallery of death.

"How long," I said to Gina, "do you think she can stay alive without more blood?"

Gina didn't answer, as though thinking of a number of days or years, and finding each number too small.

Then she turned her back to the flames and moved towards the gates and the van her friends had parked nearby.

"There's somewhere we need to go," Gina explained.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**15 January 2009 07:39 am**

_**coming home **_

It wasn't a long drive, but I fell asleep twenty minutes in and woke up by the time we'd arrived. We were in the Angeles National Forest. Jonas parked the van. Daniel led us on a stony trail through some bare patches of trees. I got the sense Jonas knew where we were going; he didn't look around at the scenery in the morning light the way Sarah, Gina and I were peering left and right. He'd seen it before.

Eventually, the rocky path gave way to a wide stretch of water; it was part of a river that widened had into a deep pool against the side of a mountain. I recognized where we were. This was the swimming hole where Daniel and Bree had come to play in the water. This was where Jonas had come to mourn Bree when she had died. And now they'd come back once more.

Gina reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out the urn that Lucy had handed her. She gave it to Daniel, who accepted it quietly. He pulled the top of the urn off. Then he moved to the edge of the water, at first keeping his feet away, but then stepping into the swimming hole after all. Daniel waded in calf-deep. He turned the urn upside-down at an angle and allowed the ashes to scatter into the wind and water.

When the urn was empty, he placed it in the water and allowed the waves to take it away.

He turned back to face us, and his expression was calm and serene. He had brought Bree home. Jonas seemed to shake for a moment, and Gina touched his shoulder as Daniel returned to dry land.

We remained for a little while longer. Jonas and Gina sat by the shore and whispered words to the loved and longed for friend and the sister never known. Sarah hugged Daniel and Daniel accepted it without grief or tears. And I watched them all and thought of how their friend was gone and yet so much of her remained.

**

**POSTED BY ALEXIS CAPSHAW**

**15 April 2009 06:59 pm**

_**checking in **_

Hey, Alexis here. Sorry it's been awhile. Things have been kind of busy and quiet at the same time, and I needed a break from blogging. I'm still on that break, but I thought I'd let you know how things are going.

Gina and I have been working on some drawing software of our own design. We think we might be able to offer mess-free finger painting at an affordable price. Jonas and Daniel went on a bit of a roadtrip. They had a bunch of friends in hiding; Emma, Maggie, Taylor, Beaumont and others. They needed to find them and tell them that it was safe to come out of hiding. Sarah got a job in a bookstore and is applying to colleges.

Jonas and Daniel finally returned with Sarah's sister, Taylor, the last of those in hiding. Tonight's a celebratory dinner party. I've not met everyone here, but let me rattle off the guest-list; Jonas, Daniel, Sarah, Gina, Emma, Taylor, Spencer, Jennie, Maggie, Beaumont, Mr. and Mrs. Wharton and someone named Alex. (That'll be confusing.)

Gina and Jonas are looking over my shoulder now, and they want to borrow the keyboard for a bit. Well, I refuse. This is my blog, and letting Jonas borrow it the one time was quite enough! Oh, wait, Gina's offering me cheesecake. Well, I suppose I can step away for a minute...

**GINA**

_A few months ago, I had the chance to imagine a life that goes on forever and ever. I was in a gallery that was a tribute to an existence of that kind. And it was offered to me as something to be desired. But all I saw was a life of loneliness, without friends, without connection to anyone, and without love._

_It's exactly the sort of life the Order wanted for every trait positive child – and it's because of my sister that we all escaped. _

**JONAS**

_When I lost Bree, I thought I'd lost everything she'd brought into my life. But I look around the room, and I see Beast, I see my sister, my parents, my friends, and Taylor -- and I know that everything Bree gave me is still here._

**ALEXIS**

I'm very proud to be part of it. I didn't actually do anything, of course, but I was in the room when some important things happened and I'm sure that counts for something.


End file.
